Those That Can't Do
by Illyria Lives
Summary: Raleigh Becket, easygoing English teacher, never expected anyone like Mako Mori to drop into his life, let alone his Languages Department. The new Japanese teacher has a hard time fitting in as Pacific Rim High battles their cross-town rival Breach Academy for the coveted Payload Award. High School AU.
1. An Introduction to General Education

**Hm not to say about this one aside from that it's based on a post I made on tumblr.**

**Beta'd by my beta-chan paradorx~**

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"This is ridiculous!" Yancy shouted from the window of his car. "We're both going to be late on the first day of the year because of you!"

"_I'm_ not the one hovering like a mother hen!" Raleigh shouted back breathlessly. He was running on the sidewalk while Yancy drove alongside him in his car, the window rolled down so that he could shout at his younger brother.

"Kid, get in the car!" Yancy ordered in his best Older Brother Voice. With a grin, Raleigh waved over his shoulder and turned a corner away from the school. He heard Yancy yelling and honking his horn back on the main road and ignored it, focusing on his run. Soon it would be winter and they would be drowned under rain that he couldn't run in– a horrible, stagnant five months spent driving to work in Yancy's car and running on his rickety old treadmill.

He threaded through side streets until he rejoined the main road and finally reached school grounds. School would start in half an hour, and there were already masses of students running around with schedules and maps and looking generally harassed. More than a few turned their heads to watch Raleigh, sweating and shirtless, head into the faculty building.

"I hate you," Yancy informed him as he handed over Raleigh's bag across his desk in the nurse's office.

"Love you too, big bro," Raleigh replied sweetly, and then ducked as Yancy threw an anatomical heart-shaped stress ball at him, beating a hasty retreat into the main offices, where he paused long enough to pull on a shirt. The locker rooms were close by his classroom, and he could grab a quick shower if he ran fast enough. His head was still trapped in the cotton when he was hit by a large, muscled shape that barked and slobbered.

"Down, Max." Raleigh's head emerged from his shirt, now stained with bulldog slobber, as Chuck Hansen was reigning in his dog, folding the leash over a few times to keep him close at hand. Max, happy as can be, continued to look hungrily at Raleigh while wagging his tail.

Chuck looked at Raleigh and wrinkled his nose. "Christ, Rayleigh—you smell like a rubbish bin."

Raleigh smiled tightly, dedicated to not starting the year off with a shouting match in the middle of the office. "Good morning, Mr. Hansen," he said stiffly. Chuck grunted and walked past Raleigh to the main desk, Max in tow.

"Chuck!" Tendo greeted. "I've got your class rosters." He handed over a stack of paper. Chuck put down Max's leash, stepped on it, and reached over Tendo's cluttered desk to grab at a yellow highlighter, taking the cap off with his teeth. He scanned through the long lists—he had a full schedule of class blocks, full to the limit, and began to highlight names. He tossed the papers one by one onto Tendo's desk.

"Wha-what the hell is this?" Tendo asked. He was swarmed today with parental and student calls, fixing mistakes on schedules, and generally directing all the chaos into some semblance of order. And now yellow-striped lists were raining down around him.

"They're all repeats—buggers think they can get off easy by signing up for the same level of shop twice." Chuck finished his second to last list and then squinted at the final one. "I want all of them taken off and called into my office during lunch," he ordered.

Tendo was muttering to himself as he collected papers, wedging a phone between his face and his shoulder.

"Tendo," Chuck was shouting over the din as Raleigh quietly collected his rosters from his bin and slipped out the door, "What the hell is this? This entire class is filled with _girls_!"

"Scared, Chuck?" Tendo quipped, and Chuck's rebuttal was cut off by the door to the office swinging shut. Raleigh exhaled slowly, lifting his bag higher on his shoulder and starting a half-jog towards the locker rooms. On his way, threading through the flood of arrived students, he passed the math and science buildings that were juxtaposed together, to the horror of the teachers and students within.

"I cannot _believe _that you would stoop so low!" a stiff, English accent boomed out from one classroom. "Childish, absolutely childish-!"

"I hate to break it to you, Hermann, but you work with kids for a living!" It was hard to tell whether Dr. Geiszler was shouting or speaking at his normal volume.

"I told you not to refer to me by my first name, we are in a _professional _setting—"

"Same old, same old," Raleigh muttered to himself as he passed, hoping not to be seen and dragged into another circular argument against his will. Last year he had been pulled in at lunch as he was walking towards the faculty building, and Yancy's office and its cot in particular, and he hadn't been able to escape until thirty minutes into his after-lunch class block.

Raleigh passed his own classroom in the English building, and saw a good-sized crowd gathered at the door, waiting for him. He increased his speed.

Since it was the first day of school, there was no requirement for students in P.E. to dress out, and two of the Wei Tang brothers were already conducting their arrived students into lines on the blacktop of the basketball courts, that were in front of the gym, which was itself between the locker rooms. Raleigh let himself into the empty boy's locker room with his faculty key and, deciding not to risk it, took a shower in freezing water, in too much of a hurry to let it heat up. It wasn't much of a shower, anyways—more of a cold rinse to get the smell of sweat off of him. He toweled off as best as he could while jamming his legs through his jeans and pulling his Max-slobbered shirt on, covering it with a navy blue sweater with only a few holes in the stitching. Then he slung his bag over his shoulder and started for the door, touching the doorknob just as the bell for the start of classes rang.

Cursing, Raleigh bolted for his room, not caring the image that he cut: still a little damp, clothes askew, and bag trailing after him and bumping against his legs awkwardly. A few late students gave him judgmental looks, and he thought he heard a Wei Tang brother wolf-whistle after him.

When he reached the English building, he slowed down a bit and tried to smooth his hair into a less intimidating shape, his hand coming away slick with water. Fantastic. Then he looked up and paused.

A young woman, short enough to be a student but too well dressed, was trying to fit a key into the doorknob and laughing awkwardly, her face a bit red as she attempted to open it, apologizing to his students as she did so. Raleigh approached her curiously.

"Having trouble?" he asked.

She whirled around to look and him and he was struck by the blue tint in her hair, along her jaw. "I'm having a bit of trouble with my key," she explained.

Raleigh took out his own key and opened the door, holding it open for the students to file inside. "This is my room," he said quietly to her, trying to spare her getting the speech in front of a crowd of students.

Her eyebrows came together. "I was told I had Room 3 in the Language Building," she explained. Raleigh winced. She must be a new teacher, to not know the ins and outs of the school.

"The Language Building is for foreign languages only," he explained. "This is the English building." He pointed across the hallway, where another group of students was milling around aimlessly by a shut door with a number 3 on the door.

She looked where he was pointed and inhaled sharply. "Thank you," she said quickly, beginning to cut across the hall.

"My name's Raleigh Becket!" he called out to her as she left. She turned and faced him. "If you have any other questions, feel free to swing by," he said, and then went inside, shutting the door behind him. Through the window he watched her reach her class, talk for a moment, and then let them in.

Keenly aware of the silence at his back, he turned to face his class, all looking at him vacantly and standing around. He waved his arms.

"Go. Sit. Please." They all did as they were told in a mad 'first day of high school' scramble. "I don't do seating charts, so feel free to just grab a seat wherever when you first come in," he continued, and hefted his bag onto his desk, opening it and shoving his workout clothes aside to get to his roster. "You can call me Mr. Becket," he said as he smoothed the slightly wrinkled papers out.

A girl raised her hand in the air like lightning. After a short pause of surprise, Raleigh pointed at her.

She put her hand down. "Are you related to the school nurse?" she asked.

He was a bit surprised that she knew his name. To most he was just 'the nurse'.

"Yes," he answered. "He's my older brother." Before she could ask after any of his other relatives he read attendance. By the time he was finished the loudspeaker came on with an electronic crackle and Raleigh sat down in his desk chair with an amused smile.

"_Goooooood morning students_!" Tendo's upbeat voice sang out loudly. "Welcome to your first day of the school year! For you returnees, great to see you again, congrats on gathering the courage to show your faces."

A few of his freshmen students were looking around in confusion.

"And for the newbies, well, I am Mr. Choi and I'll be the voice guiding you through the years here at Pacific Rim High. Normally we begin each day with a few brief announcements and flag ceremony, with a longer, more in-depth look at that day's headliners fifth block, right before lunch. Today's morning announcements are short as we welcome new faculty member and Japanese teacher Ms. Mori to the Languages Department. And now, the pledge."

They all stood and did the pledge, which Tendo ended with a canned noise of a bugle blowing. Raleigh rolled his eyes. Four years ago the soundboard had seemed like a good idea. Now there was a donation going around through the faculty to pay someone to steal it.

"Until fifth period, students. This is Mr. Choi, signing off. Stay classy, PRHS." With a static crackle, the speakers shut off and Raleigh was facing a group of wonderingly confused freshmen.

"Here we go," he said to himself. The year was officially on.

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	2. Interpersonal Dialogues for Beginners

**Thank you for the reviews, favorites, and follows. Happy K-Day!**

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First days were easy enough for Raleigh– he had been through so many. Explain his seating rules, do attendance, hand out his syllabus, which he had tossed together a week earlier, just in time for the preparing faculty meeting. He had two freshmen classes to start the day, and an extra ten-minute nutrition break that he spent at his desk, scribbling notes on his classes onto a piece of paper to help him get them started.

Someone cleared their throat.

Raleigh looked up quickly, and couldn't stop from smiling as he saw Ms. Mori standing there. "Ms. Mori," he addressed her, standing quickly. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you. For real."

She smiled as well, shaking his hand. "The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Becket. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction earlier."

"No problem. The school's got a weird system for room numbers anyway."

She tilted her head in a way that was a question and Raleigh found himself looking at her bared neck for longer than necessary.

"Technically the Languages Department is two buildings; this one and yours. But, since this building only has the library and the English classes, it's technically the English building."

"Ah," she said. She smiled again. "I suppose that students are not the only ones who have trouble the first day."

He waved a hand, dismissing her comment. "It's no big deal, really. We've been getting on Administration for years to clear the issue up."

There was a bit of a silence as both of them wondered what to say. Then, a curious student poked their head in the open door, and Raleigh waved him inside, motioning him to take a seat. Mako turned to leave.

"I'll see you at the faculty meeting after school?" he asked. She only nodded, although she did it with a smile still on her face. Raleigh couldn't help but grin in return.

* * *

"Yancy." Raleigh collapsed face-first onto the cot in the nurse's office.

"Good afternoon," Yancy countered, his smile somehow audible as he looked at his younger brother, stretched out on the small bed in the corner of his tiny room. "Come on, get up and eat your lunch."

"You're doing it again. The mothering thing."

"Better than doing the catatonic thing," Yancy countered, and crushed up his brown paper lunch bag in one hand, balling it and throwing it at Raleigh's head with incredible accuracy. With a sigh, he dragged himself out of the bed and into a chair set up in front of Yancy's desk, grabbing a sandwich from the table.

"So what's the problem?" Yancy asked, biting into his own food and watching his younger brother closely. Raleigh was frowning at his sandwich with a furrowed brow.

"Yancy, I'm…" he searched for a word. "Good-looking, right?"

Yancy blinked. "You're kidding."

"I was just concerned that—"

"Raleigh," Yancy cut him off. "No. Not today. You are not asking me if you're hot today. Eat your sandwich."

Rather glumly, Raleigh did as he was told. Yancy withstood the silence for a few more minutes before bursting out, "Why does it bother you anyway?"

"Never mind." Raleigh crumpled up his sandwich rapper and tossed it into the garbage.

"Raleigh!"

"I said never mind. Forget I brought it up." Raleigh suppressed a smile as a vein appeared in Yancy's forehead.

"God, you're a child," Yancy huffed. "Get out of my office."

Laughing, Raleigh ducked out quickly, into the main office. Tendo paused his work to call him over. "Hey! Becket-boy!" Once he was close, Tendo dropped his voice to a secretive tone. "So, how was the announcement, huh?"

"You nearly shocked my freshman class to death," Raleigh told him honestly.

"Yes." Tendo punched the air in triumph, a few beaded bracelets clacking. "Always a great way to start the year."

Raleigh grinned and was about to go into how one day Tendo would be reduced to rapping the morning announcements, but in the three seconds it to for him to phrase his sentence and open his mouth, a queue of students had already formed behind him, jostling for Tendo to alter their schedules or locker assignments. Raleigh left him to his work. "See you at the faculty meeting."

Tendo saluted him.

Raleigh strolled through the quad aimlessly, waving at a few of his old students who shouted his name. He was passing by the shop class, whose door was open as usual, and paused at the loud crashing from inside.

"_You're all a bloody disgrace!"_

He walked over and leaned in the doorway. Chuck was pacing red-faced in front of his desk, addressing a line of teenaged boys with their heads bowed.

"The world isn't a place for half-assed layabouts like you all," he said in a dark tone. "I expected more, for whatever reason. Now you buggers get the hell out of my classroom before I need to sandblast away the stains you're making on my floor." They began to troop out past Raleigh.

"And don't come back until you're all ready to apply yourselves!" he shouted after them. Raleigh got a good look at their faces. Flushed, repentant, but also with a bit of defiance in their eyes. When they were gone, Raleigh entered the room and approached Chuck's desk.

"I don't know how you get away with talking to students like that," he said honestly.

Chuck shrugged. "They're not the lot to go running to their mums about what a hardass their shop teacher is. They're good kids. Talented. Hopefully they'll sign on for the right level this time." Raleigh looked over his shoulder towards the open door and did in fact see the students joining the line to talk to Tendo.

"Now I don't know why you're snooping around," Chuck spoke up, "But I'm glad I caught you. I was wondering if you could spot me a few morning detentions once football season starts up. I want to get morning practices going this year."

Raleigh made a vague noise, not quite an agreement. He knew better than to promise Chuck anything in advance, ever since he had been saddled with organizing a bake sale for the football team. It had taken him almost a month to finish cleaning his kitchen, and he still couldn't show his face in Home Depot.

He changed the subject. "Are we finally going to win the Payload Award?"

A vein popped in Chuck's forehead. "We'd better. It's the fourth goddamn year we've come up empty."

At that Raleigh beat a retreat, the five minute warning bell going off to signal the end of lunch and the beginning of sixth block classes. As Raleigh was leaving, he saw girl after girl, most of them in clusters of two or three, giggling as they entered Chuck's class. Raleigh couldn't keep an amused smile off of his face as he looked back over his shoulder to witness Chuck's face going a shade pale.

Raleigh walked quickly past the Math and Science Buildings, hearing a loud argument taking place inside Dr. Gottlieb's room. But it wasn't a normal Newt-I-hate-you argument, either. There was a third voice.

"Dr. Gottlieb, I honestly don't think that I am qualified to—" Mako stood between the two, hands raised as if to keep them from coming to physical blows.

"Nonsense, you are an unbiased source—" Hermann was saying, and Newt was actually agreeing.

"Yeah, he hasn't infected you with complacency and _stuffiness_," Newt said. Hermann sputtered and continued his rampage.

Raleigh winced, feeling bad, and considered diving in to try and save her. Then he saw something shift in her countenance, a tightening of her jaw and a straightening of her back.

"Dr. Gottleib!" she said loudly, cutting him off. "Newt!" They both fell silence and looked at her.

"As an _unbiased _source I am also _uneducated _as to the nature of your argument," she said, and then held up her hands for silence as they tried to speak. "Allow me a few weeks of _scientific _observation before I form my _educated conclusion_?"

They both looked anywhere other than at her and muttered their support. Newt twisted his mouth and stomped out of the room like a child being sent to his room, and Hermann sniffed, flexing his fingers on his cane and lifting his chin.

"Thank you, Ms. Mori," he said stiffly, and she was quick to nod and walk out of the room with long, purposeful strides. She exhaled, relaxing, and Raleigh fell into step beside her.

"That was impressive," he told her honestly. She smiled proudly, lifting her chin a little and showing off the blue streaks in her hair.

"Thank you," she said.

"I was just about to go in and help you out," he said without thinking, awkwardly feeling heat rise up the back of his neck, "but I think instead I'll call you for help next time I get trapped."

They reached the hallway between their classes and stopped. He looked down at her and saw that she was looking up at him. They both quickly looked away.

"See you after school," he said. She nodded and headed to her classroom.

Raleigh stood there for a few more minutes, watching her go.

* * *

"I can't do it," Chuck groaned. "Every time I turn around someone is whispering about my ass! And then I turn again and they're muttering about my chest! _For chrissakes, I'm not a piece of meat!_"

Raleigh arrived late to the faculty meeting, having had his free seventh block taken up by old students visiting him and abusing him about how the previous year he had more often than not appeared first thing shirtless and covered in sweat, poking fun at how his passing twenty-eighth birthday had made him more modest. He slipped into his seat at the table unnoticed, Chuck's rant taking up everyone's attention.

"You really should learn to take a compliment," Tendo deadpanned, a corner of his mouth twitching in amusement.

Chuck pointed an accusing finger. "You did this on purpose."

Tendo pulled his mouth into a baiting smile. "If I knew that it would bother you so much, I would have."

Their voices grew louder and Herc shouted over them. "Oi! Doesn't matter. Let's get back on topic." He glared at his son, who fell into a bitter silence. Herc, the vice principal, stood at the head of the table that they were all sitting at.

"First off, welcome back, everyone," he said. "And welcome to new faces." He nodded at Mako, sitting across the table from Raleigh. "This week, keep an eye on your rosters for class drop-outs and switches. Contact Tendo to double-check anyone not arriving to class. Over the next two weeks we have club sign-ups, so if you sponsored a club last year and do not wish to do so this year, make sure to tell your students and find a replacement sponsor. If you are requested to sponsor a new club, direct your students to the proper paperwork back in the main office."

Raleigh had been asked a few dozen time last year to sponsor clubs and always turned them down gently, his lunches too filled with visits to Yancy to host a club in his classroom.

Chuck wasn't paying attention, folding a piece of paper into a sharp triangle. He flicked it, aiming for Tendo, but hit Raleigh instead. The point of the paper football caught in his sweater and stuck there. Chuck smothered his laughter. Herc shot him a look.

"As for sports tryouts," he said, making Chuck sober up, "We'll have sign-ups for days and field use in the faculty lounge. First come, first serve, as always. It's up to you to get a date and then communicate it to Tendo in time for him to make an announcement. And that seems that's all for this meeting," he said, checking a list on a piece of paper in his hand.

"Not quite."

Everyone straightened in their chairs as Principal Stacker Pentecost entered, wearing a perfectly pressed blue suit like it was a uniform. Chuck none-too-subtly moved a napping Max underneath the table with his foot, the bulldog snoring softly.

"This year is the fiftieth anniversary of the Payload Award," he said, "but you all know this."

"We've got it in the bag this year," Chuck bragged, leaning his chair back. Stacker looked at him.

"This year, the award is not only for the school's morale. It contains a cash prize of ten thousand dollars for use around the school. Winning it this year is of utmost importance."

Chatter began up and down the table at the announcement. Raleigh found himself looking at Mako, who had an expression of delicate confusion as she listened in on snatches of conversation. Then there was a loud coughing and he looked at Yancy, who was moving his eyes back and forth between Mako and Raleigh, trying to communicate something. Raleigh sought out his foot under the table and then stepped down, hard. Yancy winced.

With that, the conference closed, a few of the departments moving to different classrooms for more personalized announcements and plans. Chuck picked up his slumbering dog and carried him in his arms from the room, Herc next to him as they talked brusquely about the upcoming football season.

Raleigh was about to leave when Stacker spoke up.

"Becket. Mori." They both stood still as he approached them.

"Ms. Mori, I would like to welcome you formally to the school," he began, and said something in Japanese. She eagerly replied and he nodded. He then turned to Raleigh.

"As the head of the Language Department I expect you to make Ms. Mori fully welcome. Help her learn the ropes of the school."

Raleigh nodded. "Yes, sir."

With that, Stacker left them. Raleigh glanced slyly at Mako, who was gathering her note-taking material and placing it neatly into her briefcase. As she bent over the fringe of her hair moved to conceal her face and reveal more of her bare neck.

Raleigh mentally punched himself, picturing Yancy's face during the meeting to help squash any half-formed thoughts in his mind. Focus on the important things.

First this new teacher, and now ten thousand dollars.

This year was getting interesting.

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	3. Passive-Aggressive Anatomy 101

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**Gosh, I really do enjoy making Chuck a wily little bitch in this story.**

**Beta'd by my knight in shining armor, paradorx~**

* * *

Raleigh squeezed his eyes shut. If he ignored it, it would stop. That was the way phone calls worked.

His phone, plugged in to charge and lying on his side table, went silent for a few blissful moments before it buzzed loudly again. Groaning, Raleigh pulled it close and squinted through the blinding light at the picture flashing on the screen. Chuck flipping him off. Fitting.

He pressed _answer_. "I hate you," he said.

"Yeah I know. I need you to cover morning detention for me. Football practice and everything."

Raleigh took the phone away from his face to see the time and couldn't hold back a loud, grating groan. He was a morning person by nature, but in his mind 5 AM still counted as night.

He brought the phone back to his ear in time to catch Chuck's comment, "I hope I didn't catch you mid-wank." He didn't sound particularly bothered.

"_No_, I was sleeping." Raleigh's voice was dark as he swung his legs out of bed. "Can't you get anyone else?"

"_You _can get somebody else," Chuck replied. "Outta my hands, now. Cheers." He hung up and Raleigh swore.

He got ready, shuffling around in the sharp lights of his house while the outside world was still dark and peaceful. Coffee. Toast. Pants. Shirt. He tossed a sweater and a pair of jeans into his bag and scribbled a note to Yancy to drop it off in his classroom once he got to school. As he slipped out through the garage he stuck the note to the windshield of Yancy's car and put his bag in the trunk.

Then, with his breath puffing out in a vaporized cloud, he ran to school.

* * *

Raleigh passed through the office—basically deserted, not even Tendo was in yet—and found a key to shop class and a roster of detention-assigned students in his inbox. He found a scrap piece of paper, scribbled "I hate you" on it, and shoved it in Chuck's box. The jerk had planned this ever since he had left the school the night before, planning on giving Raleigh no time to refuse.

He was still in his sweatpants and exercise shirt—some jog-a-thon thing that Yancy had roped him into several years ago; it was faded and torn at the neck—when he got to the shop class and stopped in his tracks.

Roughly twenty students—a huge amount for any detention, let alone an early morning one—were waiting for him outside. Most of them were well-dressed and made-up girls, giggling to each other under their breath. When they spotted Raleigh approaching from the faculty offices, they stopped and stood silently, looks of confusion clear on their face.

Keenly aware that he smelled like sweat, Raleigh unlocked the door and led them all inside, directing them to pick seats.

"At the end of the period you can come up here and initial on your name to show that you served your detention," he said, and placed the roster on Chuck's battered desk. The kids all pulled out books or homework and began to work silently, the girls with pouts and disappointment. Raleigh rummaged through Chuck's desk for a lack of anything better to do and came up with football plays, a bunch of dog treats, and a DVD box set of Star Trek: The Original Series, which he stored away for possible future blackmail.

Twenty minutes into an hour of detention and he was dead bored and more than a little pissed at Chuck for roping him into this. He began to lazily check out the students in the room, again noticing how a great amount of them seemed to be very disappointed girls, who were now whispering to one another under their breaths. Something Chuck had said the day before sprung to the front of his mind. Chuck's all girl-class.

Raleigh stood up and walked around, casually looking over shoulders at work being done or books being read, and caught a girl hiding her phone underneath the table, a picture of Chuck's backside on the screen as she showed it to the girl sharing the table with her. Raleigh tightened his mouth and returned to Chuck's desk, leaning against it.

"Can I have your attention, please?" he asked, crossing his arms. Twenty sets of eyes met his.

"If you weren't assigned a detention by a teacher, please raise your hand," he said, speaking cautiously. Fifteen kids raised their hands—all the pretty, made-up girls with disappointed expressions. "If you are currently holding up your hand," Raleigh continued, "please leave."

The girls stood up glumly and filed out in a dismal line. Raleigh surveyed the remaining kids.

"I'm gonna be honest with you," he said with a sigh. "Mr. Hansen is a dick and made me wake up early for this and I'm not happy."

One of the kids nodded. "Sounds like him."

Raleigh motioned towards them while leaning back on Chuck's desk. "I'm guessing that he's the one who assigned you all detentions?" They nodded.

Raleigh was deep in thought for a moment. "Okay. Screw him, I'm letting you go early. Go… take a nap in the library or something." They wasted no time in packing up and leaving. Raleigh collected the detention roster and locked up the room, roughly shoving all of Chuck's crap into his inbox in the office, which now sported a barely awake Tendo Choi.

"Morning," Raleigh said to him, standing in front of his desk.

Tendo looked up at him. "No," he said, and punctuated the statement by chugging an entire mug of coffee, which he placed on the top ledge of his desk and picked up the next of three full mugs that were lined up beside it.

After rapping his knuckles on the ledge of Tendo's desk he left, telling from the shut door that Yancy wasn't in yet.

"Take a shower!" Tendo shouted at him as he left. "You stink!"

"Good morning, Mr. Choi!" Raleigh shouted back, and reached out a hand to pull open the blinds on one bank of windows. Bright morning sunlight burst out, hitting Tendo's desk like a beacon. There was the sound of Tendo hitting the floor and roaring for Raleigh's head as he finally exited the offices.

* * *

One thing that Raleigh hated was putting on gross clothes again after showering. He winced and walked tenderly from the locker rooms to his class, feeling the crust of dry sweat rub against fresh skin. The brisk early-morning air clung to his damp hair and drifted down his back, making him shiver.

His classroom was unlocked and he propped the door open, finding his bag inside on his desk. Yancy had left him a note on top:

_I'm your brother not your delivery boy_

Raleigh chuckled and pinned the note to a corkboard with similar other threats and grievances that Yancy had passed along to him throughout the years. It was a small bit of personalization that he brought to his classroom, which he kept bare out of the inability to really enjoy decorating than an actual quest to be boring. Along with his note-board he had various printouts of photos from his years abroad, and many of Yancy as well during his year in Hong Kong. They were all in black and white, which ruined any welcoming effect they may have had.

Without pausing to consider the open door—it was early morning, nearly an hour before school would start—he gratefully stripped off his sweat-stained shirt and bundled it around his hands, breathing a sigh of relief. He picked up his clean under-shirt from the bag and buried his face in the cleanliness for a moment.

When he looked up, his eyes landed randomly at the open door—and straight across the hall, to another open door, completely even with his—where Ms. Mori stood in the doorway of her classroom, looking at him with wide eyes.

She blinked a few times while he stood there, froze, shirtless and slightly glistening from his shower, and then set her shoulders before walking across the hall to him. He struggled to untangle his hands from his shirt before she got there, but only succeeded in forcing himself into a pair of cotton handcuffs.

Ms. Mori stood in the doorway. "Mr. Becket?" she asked.

"Please, call me Raleigh," he replied. "Good morning."

"Good morning." She sounded amused, a slight smile on his mouth. "I was only wondering if you could meet me at lunch to go over the school's grading system… it's a bit strange to me."

The grading system that Raleigh himself only barely comprehended. "Sure," he replied quickly. His hands were still trapped in his shirt and he didn't know of a way to disentangle them and get dressed with her standing there and not look awkward at the same time.

With a small little dip of a bow she turned and walked straight across the hall into her classroom.

Raleigh freed his hands and leaned out of the doorway to talk to her again, calling out, "Uh, I'll bring lunch!" he said. She flashed a smile over her shoulder at him and then shut her door. He was busy navigating his shirt, too busy to notice how she appeared in the window of her classroom, looking his bare torso up and down.

He did look up, arms halfway into his sleeves, when there was a loud gasp at the throat of the hallway, where a group of fifteen or so girls—the ones he had booted from detention and left to wander the school—stood, staring at his bare chest with open mouths. One of them had a phone out and he could have sworn he heard the sound of a shutter engaging as he ducked back inside, struggling into his shirt, face bright red.

* * *

Raleigh skipped the food line by teacher privilege—a few of his older students called him out on it and he shushed them with a look, and he had two cardboard containers of food balanced in one hand as he avoided Chuck's room and the Math and Science buildings. Ms. Mori's door was propped open and she sat at the computer, looking blankly at the screen with her fingers resting on the keys.

"Ms. Mori?" Raleigh asked, knocking on the wall with his free hand. She jumped a little and turned to him. She stood and straightened the sweater that she wore.

"Raleigh," she greeted him. "Please, call me Mako."

He nodded and couldn't keep the smile off of his face. He set down the lunches on her desk and there was some shuffling as she made him take her chair and she tugged one from a desk closer for herself. She brushed against him a few times and Raleigh wished that he wasn't wearing long sleeves. He started up the grading system and watched from his peripherals as she began to drink from one of two juice boxes he had gotten for them.

"The grading system is actually pretty new," he explained as he entered her information into the login screen and waited for it to load. "It took us all a while to get used to it. Newt joked that we'd need new degrees in computer science to get it all down."

She laughed a little and he continued. "It really makes me regret grabbing physical education as a minor."

"I'm not much better off," she replied, "and I have a minor in engineering."

He raised one eyebrow. "That's impressive." All side talk stopped as he talked her through the entry system for grades and the dates and times that she needed to enter and submit them by, setting her up with a calendar on the program to keep her in check.

"What's that?" she asked, pointing with one hand at the screen while the other rested on his forearm. His breath caught a little and he looked at her, her face so close, eyes not focused on what she was pointed at but at her. After a moment he coughed.

"Um, that's the attendance section," he explained. "It is actually too complicated to use, so we stick to rosters on paper."

She nodded and withdrew both of her arms. He wanted to find something else that would catch her attention, make her get close to him, but he came up empty.

The bell to signal the last five minutes of lunch rang, and he had to say his goodbyes in a rush as her next class piled in, chatting in a mix of English and Japanese that was actually impressive for a second day of class.

In his classroom, he left the door open as he lectured, able to look out at any time and catch her doing the same across the hallway. Once they met eyes and looked away, Raleigh losing track in his speech and stuttering, much to the amusement of his students.

* * *

"Rayleigh!" Chuck flagged him down after school as he was locking his classroom. "Glad I caught you. I just wanted to say thanks for whatever it was you said to those girls who filled up detention on purpose."

It took Raleigh a minute. "You _knew_?"

"Hell yeah I knew," Chuck scoffed, "why do you think I called you to sub in? Anyways, whatever it was you told them worked. Today they weren't snapping pics of my ass! They've moved onto greener pastures, I reckon." He clapped Raleigh on the shoulder. "I owe you one!" Chuck walked away, Max happily tottering off next to him, unaware that he served Satan incarnate.

Once he was gone, Raleigh began to hit his head against the door to his classroom. He then headed towards the nurse's office.

* * *

"_Stop laughing!"_

"I can't… oh my God, I can't even…" Yancy clutched at his chest and cried with laughter as Raleigh, steaming, reclined on the medical cot with a murderous look in his eye. Yancy wheezed, controlling himself for a few moments. He looked at his brother. "At least you know the answer now."

"The answer to what?" Raleigh asked sharply. He felt like hitting something.

Yancy could barely contain himself long enough to say the entire sentence. "Now you know that you're hot." He exploded into another fit of laughter and fished out his cell phone. "Oh God, I'm tweeting about this."

"_Yancy, I know where you sleep._"

"Alright, alright," Yancy panted, holding out his hands in surrender and dropping his phone to his desk. "But, like, _Jesus_, Raleigh. Your life sucks."

Raleigh frowned and settled back on the cot, looking up at the foam ceiling tiles. "No shit, Yancy Drew. Tell me something I don't know."

"Well, for one," Yancy pointed out. "I'm not your therapist… and _that's _not a therapy couch." It was an old argument.

"It's a _bed_!" Raleigh burst out, frustrated. "For the purpose of lying down!"

"It's a _medical cot_," Yancy exclaimed. "For the purpose of treating _injured children_." He sighed tiredly. "On second thought, maybe you do belong there."

Raleigh dragged his hands down his face and looked at his brother. Yancy sobered up, leaning forward in his chair with his chin propped in one hand. "Raleigh, I know that I'm your big brother and I'm supposed to support you, and on top of all that I'm also qualified to open up the neck of a child with a bee allergy with a pen and an X-acto knife—which makes me an intimidating force—but I'm not a miracle worker."

"Whatever," Raleigh said, his least favorite word in the entirety of the English language, but it fit for the situation.

"Come on, your day must have had _some _kind of bright side," Yancy pressed. "Focus on that and not the fact that you are now the object of adoration for a cluster of hormonal teenage girls."

He knew that Yancy was baiting him, but Raleigh didn't bite. He closed his eyes and focused instead on the touch of Mako's hand on his arm, the curve of her nose and the lay of her hair across her neck.

What a bright side.

* * *

**Review, please?**


	4. Science of Human Magnetism

**Thank you for all of the reviews, follows, and favorites!**

**Beta'd by my priceless beta-chan paradorx~**

* * *

"Raleigh, have you seen my scarf?" Yancy called out from the partition door in their duplex.

"You're not wearing a scarf to the football game, old man," Raleigh replied, head poking out from his bedroom door, pulling on a sweater in the school's colors.

"Says the man whose wardrobe consists of like thirty different sweaters."

"Touché," Raleigh replied. "I'm still not telling you."

Yancy sighed, but they were running out of time. They arrived late to the football game, grabbing a far out parking spot, all the others taken up by the other spectators. The metal stands were packed, on both sides of the football field, Breach Academy on one side and Pacific Rim High on the other. Their mascot, Jaeger, was dancing along the sidelines, plastic bits and pieces clacking together. Raleigh had always loved the story of how they had put the choice of mascot to the students in the 70s and they all decided on a strange transformer-like robot.

The brothers parted ways at the entrance, Yancy heading down to the field where one of the Wei Tang brothers was sitting on a gurney, waiting in case his expertise as a physical trainer was needed. Both Hansens, father and son, stood with the team around them in a huddle. Max was shaking with excitement, wearing a football jersey with _MAX _on the back; a gift from the football team last year that Chuck had actually smiled at, meaning that he was happy beyond words at receiving it.

Raleigh was walking in front of the bleachers, looking for somewhere to sit, and was flagged down loudly. "BECKET!"

Newt stood up, waving his arms frantically over his head. His normal sleeve tattoos were actually covered in a leather jacket, but he had compensated by painting his face the school colors. Dr. Gottlieb was sitting next to him, looking like he wanted nothing better than to be struck by lightning and taken out of his misery. He was drowning in a large army-grade parka that Raleigh knew for a fact was a gift from Newt that they never talked about.

Raleigh decided to humor the short scientist and joined them, sitting next to Newt on the hard, cold metal bench. They couldn't talk over the loud cheers and screams as the two teams met on the field. He wasn't too interested in football—or really, sports in general. Too many years getting kicked off of teams and chosen last. He let his mind wander.

The past two weeks had been hectic. A few students switched in and out of classes and class blocks, making it hard to start any large projects. He had gotten in a brief essay for his lowerclassmen, asking them to go through their expectations for high school and the year. Plenty of them were full of stars and hearts when they mentioned how happily surprised they were with their Japanese class and teacher, the incredibly kind Ms. Mori. It took all of Raleigh's self-control not to bump them up a few extra points when she was mentioned.

She would drop by the classroom sometimes during nutrition break and chat with him about upcoming school functions, Tendo's announcements… one time she talked to him during their free seventh block for a whole thirty minutes about scheduling tests on different days so not to swamp their shared students. Yancy rolled his eyes while Raleigh recounted it to him during the drive home.

Now Yancy was down on the field, playing games of numb-fingered roshambo with the Wei Tang brother on the gurney and Raleigh had no one to talk to; Hermann and Newt were engaged in another one of their old quarrels that Raleigh paid no mind to. It was just another level of background noise as he occupied himself thinking about Mako and class schedules, eyes casting around the bleachers and the field. Something happened and the crowd went wild. Raleigh cheered alongside, not really knowing what was going on.

He turned his chin around, attempting to crack his sore neck, and looked over Newt's head, back along the bleachers. His head then snapped straight ahead, trying to look as casual as possible and coming across instead like someone had shoved a live wire up his ass.

Yancy looked over his shoulder at him and did a double take, which Raleigh ignored.

Mako was sitting next to Sasha and Aleksis, chatting amicably to Sasha, who was more or less sitting in her husband's lap as they watched the game. She was wearing a long black coat with her collar turned up around a scarf of the school colors. It made the blue streaks in her hair stand out like beacons. Raleigh ignored the urge to turn back around and look at her, keeping his eyes straight ahead as something happened on the field again and everyone was booing; Chuck was being physically restrained by his father to keep him from going at the referee. Which actually was quite common. However, he had never done it before with such a look of rage clear on his face.

"That's not a high schooler!" his voice carried to the bleachers, faintly, "That's the goddamn spawn of Godzilla!" Herc was switching between yelling at him and yelling excuses at the referee, who was actually used to Chuck's antics by now and gestured for the next kickoff.

Newt nudged Raleigh's arm. "Dude, are you okay? You look like you're about to have an aneurism."

"I'm fine," Raleigh managed, carefully talked to Newt without turning his head enough to see Mako.

"… Right," Newt replied in an odd tone of voice. Then, in a move that he had perfected to almost an art, he turned to Dr. Gottlieb and engaged him in an entirely different string of conversation, which reached a zenith at an impossible speed, sticking Raleigh on the edge of a battle zone as the game was temporarily forgotten. Chuck looked like he was close to ripping out his own hair, pacing on the edge of the field. Even Herc was beginning to show signs of cracking. A wave of cheers from Breach Academy's bleachers across the field punctuated Dr. Gottlieb and Newt's argument.

"You imbecile, you utter and complete wanker-!"

"You were thinking it, I just said it man, don't throw a fit-!"

"I can't believe you, you're a child-!"

"And you were never a child-!"

Raleigh could feel the tension, like the taste of ozone on his tongue, spreading. Any second now he would be pulled in against his will, and although he wasn't interested in football, he definitely did not want _that _pile of snakes dropped into his lap, thank you. He began to discretely slide away but was trapped by bodies. Newt began to gesture over his shoulder at Raleigh with one hand and he felt a sense of dread fill his stomach.

Then, the touch of a hand on his shoulder. He looked and his breath caught in his throat, Mako sitting on the bench behind him, her face close to his so she could mutter in his ear, "Come on." She got up and moved, and he scrambled after her as quickly as possible, making half-goodbyes in the arguing doctor's direction. They paid him no mind.

Together, Raleigh and Mako snaked their way through the crowds until they were sitting on an empty stretch of bench, back by Sasha and Aleksis, who were busy adding their voices to the displeased yelling of the school as Breach Academy scored another touchdown.

"Thank you," Raleigh said honestly.

"You did say that you would ask for my help the next time you were in trouble with them," she reminded him coyly, and he flashed back to her first day of school at lunch, watching her get caught in, and escape from, a Gottlieb-Newt argument like a pro. The memory brought a smile to his face.

"My hero," he laughed, voice far more sincere that he intended. Mako was glowing and Raleigh felt his heart give out a misshapen beat. He had sat down next to her, but there was still a respectable distance between them on the bench, which yawned at him. Without any close contact the night was getting colder, and he could see Mako rubbing her hands together inside her coat sleeves. He shifted his weight slightly, unconsciously thinking of sliding closer, until they were pressed arm-to-arm and thigh-to-thigh.

Mako was still looking at him, and he was still smiling at her. At the same time they became all too aware of how long it had stretched and their faces grew hot. Sasha and her husband were muttering to each other in Russian, looking at them from the corner of their eyes.

The moment broke, like glass, and they both looked away, smiling brightly with cheeks reddened, not from the cold. Raleigh's smile was gone in a second as he noticed Yancy doing a strange dance on the field. His brother, seeing him, began to gesture wildly. Raleigh shrugged, holding his hands up. Together, Yancy and the Wei Tang brother, who was standing on the gurney for better viewing purposes, began to gesture together for him to move to his left—closer to Mako. Raleigh made a face and considered the problems that would arise if he stormed onto the field and punched Yancy in the gut.

Nevertheless, slowly, and shifted his weight around until he was closing in the distance between himself and Mako, trying to make it look natural and failing utterly and completely.

Down on the field, Yancy brought his hand into contact with his forehead.

Raleigh was getting close, very close, when suddenly the bench creaked and someone breathed "_Hello, Mr. Becket_," into his ear and he flinched. A young girl, one of Chuck's shop class students, had slipped into the space between him and Mako and was now looking at him from underneath a thick layer of mascara-heavy eyelashes. She was joined by several other girls, circling around him like a pack of lionesses and he was a wounded zebra. Mako could be seen looking at them with wide eyes, mouth open in surprise, and Raleigh regretted everything he had ever done in his life up until that point.

Before it could get any worse—and Raleigh had faith in his lucky ability to make any bad situation worse—he stood up and left, leaving the bleachers with his hands shoved deep in his pockets just as another round of booing went up from their side of the bleachers; he could dimly hear Chuck shouting profanity over it all, which was quite a feat.

He shivered alone in the car for the next forty minutes until Yancy came, gave him a long, cold look, and drove them both home silently.

* * *

The next morning was benign enough, with the normal run to school, shower and change, and two normal morning classes of freshmen who were all disappointed in the poor show the football team had put on the night before. They had been smashed, losing by almost forty points. Chuck had to be bodily removed from the field in the third quarter.

But, an impromptu school-wide assembly was called and Raleigh resigned himself to boredly leaning against the wall, trying not to dwell on the bombing disaster that had been last night. He couldn't even get up the courage to sit next to her. It hung heavy on his shoulders as the students chattered aimlessly, and the assembly began with Principal Pentecost approaching a microphone set up.

"_Why aren't you standing next to her?!_"

Raleigh jumped, heart pounding. Yancy appeared out of nowhere and stood at his shoulder, face screwed up into a look of casual fury. "Jesus," Raleigh said, one hand on his chest, trying to convince his heart that he wasn't about to be murdered in the middle of a school assembly.

"Not quite," Yancy replied, easing up his stance a bit to lean against the wall next to Raleigh. All of the teachers stood off to one side of the gym while their students took up the wall-to-wall bleacher seating. "You should go stand next to her."

Against his will, Raleigh craned his head around and spotted Mako standing at attention against the wall with Sasha on one side, occasionally elbowing her in the ribs and speaking into her ear. Mako didn't respond, too focused on Stacker's speech to the student body about the importance of the upcoming school year and the Payload Award—with the football team's loss the night before, which still had Chuck in a fuming rage, standing next to his father with Max laying down at his feet, his face a bright shade of red, the entire school would need to chip in to ensure victory—to respond to her neighbor's jabs.

"I'm already standing here," Raleigh said stiffly, hoping against hope that his brother would drop it.

"Yeah, but you _want _to go stand over there," Yancy pressed.

"Yancy, I am already standing here!" Raleigh hissed back.

"Raleigh, I am your older brother and I command you to _go stand next to her-!_" Both bickering brothers fell silent and cold as Stacker looked straight at them while flawlessly continuing the flow of his speech. A drop of cold sweat passed between Raleigh's shoulder blades, and Yancy went visibly pale. They remained silent for the rest of the speech, although they barely paid attention, occasionally shoving each other to one side and communicating silently.

The speech wrapped up: "at the edge of our hope, at the end of our funding, we have chosen to believe in each other. Today, we face the challenges that are at our door. Today, we are canceling the apocalypse of this school!" It was met with loud cheers from the students, who were standing up and applauding. Raleigh almost wished he had paid more attention to the speech.

Students began to file outside, chatting excitedly with each other as they took their time heading back to class. Raleigh and Yancy had a stare-down, wondering who was going to budge first from their station on the wall. It was petty and childish but they were petty and childish brothers. If Raleigh moved first then he gave Yancy permission to run his life. If Yancy moved then he would be giving up all claims on Raleigh's life.

Before either could break, Tendo sidled up to them with a look in his eye that Raleigh decided he didn't like.

"Hey, player," he greeted, and Raleigh knew that he had made the correct conclusion, "I heard about yesterday… so, what's the haps on you and Ms. Mori?" he wiggled his eyebrows.

"What do you know about it?" Raleigh asked suspiciously, crossing his arms over his chest to cover the fact that it wasn't a real answer.

Tendo looked back and forth between the brothers. Yancy tried to communicate something with his eyes that Tendo missed.

"… I follow Yancy on twitter," he explained simply, and Yancy brought his hand into contact with his own forehead. If looks could kill, Raleigh would be an only child.

His face melted into a smile, however, when Mako went past him, Sasha on one side, walking so close that Mako brushed against Raleigh's arm in the crowd, which carried them outside of the gym and into the hall.

"Sorry," she said, looking up at him through thick lashes.

"No problem," he responded. "I'll see you at lunch?"

She nodded quickly and freed herself of the Sasha-Raleigh sandwich and hurried off to her class. A few of her students latched onto her and began talking with her in Japanese, and Raleigh felt a strange glow of pride take over his face. Then he snapped out of it.

Tendo and Yancy were looking at him. They looked at each other.

"It's pathetic," Yancy said with a sigh.

"Absolutely twitterpated," Tendo agreed. As one they turned and headed back to the faculty offices, talking avidly with their hands.

Raleigh made a mental note to get himself a twitter account.

* * *

**Heh. Yancy's twitter is such a thing.**

**Review, please?**


	5. Study of Aquatic Aerodynamics

**Hey you guys, sorry for the wait, but school started up again and so I'm like "AUGUHUEUDUH!?" 80 percent of the time. Heh. But no worries, I will try my best to keep quick updates on this.**

**Many many thanks to my beta-chan paradorx who is now a licensed driver! _So_ _h__ide yo kids hide yo wife-_I'm just kidding. Probably.**

* * *

Raleigh woke up with his alarm going at 6 AM, feeling calm and rested after a night of dreamless sleep. As he sat up, shoving off piles of blankets, the air was sharp and cold, and he took in a great breath and savored the feeling of the early morning coiling into his lungs. California was usually warmer than their native Anchorage, and Raleigh coveted all the moments of cold he could; Yancy hid under piles of blankets and space heaters, keeping his half of the duplex as warm as the Sahara. Raleigh didn't care for it, and kept his side "like an icebox," as Yancy liked to gripe come winter.

He sprang into action after his moment of enjoying the cold, jumping out of bed and walking briskly into his kitchen, turning on lights as he went. The sun would normally be rising in the distance at this time, but it was gray and overcast outside, the clouds hanging low and heavy in a way that promised rain in the afternoon. The first rainfall of the year. Raleigh intended to work as much from the momentary lull as he could.

He scarfed down a banana and granola bar, shoving jeans and sweater and some graded grammar worksheets into his bag haphazardly, not caring what was crushed or rumpled in his quest to get out the door as quickly as possible. He laid his full bag at the door that partitioned his and Yancy's sides of the duplex, so that when he finally woke up and attempted to get to the garage it would block his path. Raleigh had the image of Yancy tripping over the bag and snickered quietly to himself as he left the house via the front door.

It was chilly and damp outside, the streetlamps still shining to keep back the gloom. Raleigh began his run down the sidewalk, falling to the ease of movement. Running was mindless. Silent. The world around him wasn't yet awake. Grades and upcoming tests didn't bother him, the crushing wait of upcoming standardized testing wasn't at his back; the Payload Award was a distant memory.

For several minutes Raleigh let his mind drift silently as he ran, the only sound his own breathing and the light touches of his shoes on the cement. The cold was bracing, but the warmth radiating from his bare skin kept it away. Silence and cold.

Then, there was another set of lungs, another pair of feet, moving and breathing beside him. Raleigh looked to his left and his breath caught.

"Mako?" he gasped.

She didn't respond, not even acknowledging him, but it was Mako, running alongside him with her blue-streaked hair blowing back from her face, set intently on the sidewalk ahead of them. Raleigh slowed down to talk to her, questions gathering in his mouth, but just as he was letting up she looked at him from the corner of her eye and sped ahead at a full sprint.

"Mako?!" Raleigh called out, and gave chase.

For a block he was on her heels, but then she slowed down to a normal running speed and Raleigh was at her side. "Mako, what's going on?" he panted slightly, a bright warmth in his limbs. She looked at him, this time fully turning her head. She smiled, a bright flash of white teeth, almost challengingly, and then set her face in a look of intention, once again booking it at full speed.

Raleigh thought that he was catching on. "All right," he called out, and pushed himself to run faster. They took the corner at a dangerous tilt and purposefully went through side streets to avoid traffic lights. After three blocks Raleigh was at Mako's side again, hearing her ragged but focused breath. He barely glanced at her as he kept her speed for a moment, slowly easing up back into a casual speed. She kept up with him, a dance of stretched legs and pumping arms, inhaling and exhaling evenly to try and regulate her heartbeat.

He glanced at her; she was looking at him. He smiled, full and bright and slow.

Then, he broke into a sprint, savoring the surprised _oof_of air she released as he began to lead her through the streets at a breakneck pace.

He almost laughed as he skidded around a corner. He was dripping with sweat despite the cool morning air, which had begun to mist softly, and he could already feel the soreness in his legs. His heart was pounding hard against his ribcage, fit to break bone, but he was only half sure that it was because of the running. Mako was close behind him, a dark blur, all speed, with her drive clear in her eyes and her mouth screwed up with concentration. It was no longer a dance; it was a fight, lithe and athletic. There was a magnetic pull between them as they wove through streets just beginning to stir in the morning.

Raleigh recognized the area they were headed through; he and Yancy had rented an apartment nearby when Yancy was just starting out as the school nurse and Raleigh was still suffering through being a teacher's aide. He began to snake his way through the streets by memory before he reached a waist-high wooden gate that opened into a dirt path.

Mako didn't even pause as she followed him over it, into an encapsulated area of woodland and trails.

The trail was uneven and went up and down between rugged hills and groves of oak trees and sagebrush. Raleigh saw Mako out of the corner of his eye, taking a higher path than him; legs eating up ground, arms moving through the air, skin glowing with warmth and sweat. She was a sight. Their trails merged at the same thunderous moment.

They were neck and neck—but neither of them tried to get ahead. The trail was so narrow that they drew their arms in to avoid banging elbows, but neither of them wanted to fall back. Their feet struck the ground at the same moment, and Raleigh focused on the sound of his breathing, impossibly loud in his mind, for several long moments before realizing that the reason it was so loud was because Mako was breathing at the same time as him; their heartbeats were in sync as they came to the end of the trail and ran side-by-side onto school grounds. The song of the air in their lungs thrummed together for a moment longer and then broke like glass, separating the two heartbeats and leaving Raleigh feeling sharply singular.

At the quad they slowed to a jog and then a walk. Raleigh was panting, his breath fogging, and he could smell the strong scent of sweat around him. Mako's hair was plastered to the back of her neck and her face was flushed as she held her hands over her head and took deep, even breaths.

They stood there in the quad for a few long moments.

"… Hi," Raleigh said, breathing raw. He braced his hands on his knees and looked up at Mako with a small smile, which she returned.

"Hi," she echoed.

"I didn't know you… run," Raleigh said stupidly, trying to think of something else to say.

She simply shrugged.

He swallowed heavily, his heart still too loud and too quick in his chest. "I… okay. See you at lunch?" his voice was uneven.

Mako nodded quickly. "Lunch," she echoed once again, and for a moment Raleigh thought she looked like she realized it. "My room?" she asked.

"Yeah. Yeah sure."

She nodded again, and once again a look flitted across her face, a small bit of shock and embarrassment as she realized that she was repeating herself. She turned on her heel and walked away with long, sure strides, towards her classroom. He watched her leave, beginning to feel the cold eating at him.

Chuck strolled by on his way out from football practice, his clipboard and playbook under one arm and Max on a leash. He looked Raleigh up and down, one eyebrow raised. Raleigh jerked his chin at him silently, a challenge to ask a question. Chuck rolled his eyes and whistled for Max to walk faster with him into the shop class, the posse of early morning detention girls conspicuously missing.

With that, Raleigh headed to the showers.

By the time he emerged, it was pouring rain in sheets. He dashed through open hallways, getting hustled through the crowds of students hiding out from the weather like they had no idea that it would end up raining on an overcast day in September. He ended up on Mako's side of the Languages Building and strolled down to her classroom, poking his head inside.

She stood at the blackboard, adding to the homework list as a few students came inside and began to settle themselves in their desks. Raleigh was stuck, half in and half out of the door as he took in how she had changed into different clothes, and her hair was slightly damp—evenly, not top-wet with rain, but as if she had taken a show before getting back to her room. The thought of Mako showering, separated from him in the boy's locker room by only a tiled wall, stuck with him for longer than it should have.

As she wrote her eyes flickered from side to side, and she spotted him in her periphery. Instantly her face was transformed, warm and bright and Raleigh had a moment of thinking _oh._

"Mr. Becket," she said, and it felt like a slap to the face before he realized that while he stood in the doorway several students had slipped under his arm and her room was nearly full of kids.

"Ms. Mori," he returned formally. He glanced over his shoulder at the downpour. "We just managed to make it in before the rain," he said.

She nodded in agreement, looking past him as well to the rain, considering it. As a newcomer to the area she probably didn't consider how hard the downpour would be when she started out running that morning. She bit her bottom lip. "I should text around about getting a ride home…" she said, and began to pat her pockets for her phone.

"I could give you a ride." He spoke before he could think.

Mako looked up at him. "Really?" she asked, her voice slightly higher than normal.

No. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, no problem."

She smiled. The bell rang. "Great," she said.

"Great," he repeated, and then ducked out into the rain before he could dig himself into a bigger hole, letting his class into the room just in time for the morning announcements.

* * *

"I have a plan," Raleigh said, slamming his hand down onto Yancy's desk.

Yancy blinked up at him slowly, and then made a show of squinting out of the window. "Is that a flying pig?" he asked.

"Yancy, I'm serious."

"Aren't you supposed to have a class right now?" Yancy pressed, looking at the watch on his wrist and comparing it to the one on the wall.

"Aren't you supposed to be treating injured kids right now?" Raleigh snapped in response, pulling up a chair.

"You scare them off," Yancy replied with a wave of his hand. "What's your plan?"

"I need the car."

"Nope, sorry, baby brother, but I need the car." Yancy leaned back, smug. Raleigh almost threw himself across the desk.

"_Yancy—_"

"It's _my _academic seminar for the administration board, and, last time I checked, it was _my _car. Sorry. What, do you have a hot date? What happened to snagging a ride home from Tendo or somebody?"

Raleigh ignored the first question. "I just need the car, okay?"

Yancy leaned back precariously in his chair. "Do you even _know_how to drive?" he wondered aloud. "I've been your chauffeur for, like, _decades_."

Raleigh pressed his lips together, not taking the bait. "I need the car. I just… have a promise I need to follow through. Help me out?"

"Sorry kid, those puppy-dog eyes don't work on me anymore. I've hardened my heart."

With a strangled cry of frustration Raleigh got out of the chair, knocking it over. He stormed into the main office, with Tendo taking one look at him and deciding that there was something underneath his desk that needed his immediate attention.

Raleigh stopped, trying to gather himself. He actually did have a class then, but since his nutrition break had been taken up talking to Mako about the upcoming standardized testing—which they had both been roped into overseeing—he hadn't been able to get away. He gave them an essay prompt as soon as he could and made the break to the nurse's offices. At the thought of Yancy's response to his plead, Raleigh began to grind his teeth. Then, he stopped, something Yancy had said sticking in his mind.

Puppy-dog eyes.

* * *

Max noticed him first, lifting his head from where he laid down beside Chuck's desk and wagging his tail. Chuck looked up and noticed Raleigh standing in the doorway, bouncing his weight around nervously.

"The hell is it, _Rah_leigh?" Chuck demanded from the front of the class, the students all gathered at various workstations, metal screaming away. Raleigh waved him over to the doorway silently and with an eye roll Chuck walked to the door. Raleigh put one hand on his shoulder and drew him in close to keep nearby students from hearing him.

"I need to borrow your car," he said in a low voice.

"Why the hell would I give you my car?" Chuck demanded, eyes narrowed. He shrugged out from under Raleigh's arm and was about to snap something else when Raleigh spoke up.

"Because there isn't a Star Fleet regulation against it," he said simply. Chuck froze. "Or is there, Captain Kirk?"

Chuck's mouth was opening and closing like a fish. "What do you…?" he asked, eyes shifting around nervously.

"Invest in lockable desk drawers," Raleigh answered bluntly.

There was a flash across Chuck's face as he remembered his Star Trek: The Original Series DVD box set currently secreted away in the bottom drawer of his desk for lazy afternoons without anyone breathing down his neck. His face turned bright red.

"You _bastard—_"

"Keys." Raleigh held out his hand. Chuck eyed it suspiciously.

"What are you going to do with it?" he asked carefully.

Raleigh rolled his eyes. "I'm not going to wreck it. I'm just going to drive home."

"You double with your brother," Chuck pointed out, crossing his arms. "What's this _really _about?"

A crackle of electricity passed between them as Raleigh refused to answer and Chuck refused to budge. Then, with a sigh, Chuck shoved his way back to his desk, opened the top drawer, and threw his keys at Raleigh, aiming to seriously injure. They bounced sharply off of his chest and he stooped to pick them up from the shop floor.

"Thanks," Raleigh said, pocketing the keys, voice dripping with sarcasm. He made the Vulcan salute as he left, leaving Chuck red-faced and sputtering while his class looked on in confusion.

* * *

"Well, here we are," Raleigh said superfluously as he rolled to a stop in front of Mako's modest condo.

"Thank you," she said, dipping her head a bit, "for giving me a ride home."

"No problem." His voice was soft and low, and he cleared his throat to try and get it back to normal levels. "Um, anytime." Rain washed the front windshield of Chuck's truck, and pattered with a tinny sound against the roof. The inside was warm from the heater and seemed a world away from everything else. He could smell Mako's perfume, tried not to let it make his head swim.

Mako placed her hand on the door handle, and paused. "It was good," she said, "running with you this morning." She made a small motion with her head and her hair shielded how red her cheeks were. Raleigh looked resolutely at the steering wheel, tightening his hands on it.

"Yeah," he agreed shortly. "When the rain lets up, we should…" he self-consciously left the thought unfinished.

"We should," she said softly, taking his thoughts and keeping them, answering and showing how she understood. It was a frightfully heightened moment, and then she said quickly, "Goodbye," getting out of the car before he could respond, hurrying to her door and letting herself in.

With a dry mouth and nervous hands Raleigh drove the truck around the corner and parked, resting his head against the steering wheel and breathing in long and deep, feeling horribly singular as there was no other heartbeat besides his own. It was back, that mental insistent _oh._

_Oh._

"Dammit," he said quietly.

He drove the truck back home, parking it on the curb. Tomorrow he would drive it to school in the hard mist, more of a drizzle, and give the keys back to a prickly Chuck. Tomorrow he would smile at Mako from across the hallway, his door open despite the cold that his students complained of, so that he could catch a glimpse of her in the window occasionally, laughing at something and smiling at her students, playing bubblegum pop music in Japanese.

_Oh._

* * *

**Chuck's secret inner Trekkie is a callback from the last chapter (finding the DVDs in his desk during early morning detention), which is a reference to his actor Rob Kazinsky's admitted love for Star Trek. Like, he has a _Kirk costume_. Seriously.**

**Review, please?**


	6. Standardized Distractions

**Yes hello again. It's almost midnight, excuse my inability to ramble.**

**Blah blah beta-chan paradorx. It was her birthday yesterday, sing to her.**

* * *

Raleigh looked out of the car window and watched the light drizzle drifting past, occasionally sticking to the glass and collecting droplets, rolling softly across the window. Yancy, sitting in the driver's seat, made a noise under his breath.

"What?" Raleigh asked.

"Nothing," Yancy muttered. His hands were tight on the steering wheel. Raleigh shifted his weight so that he was leaning over the center console, staring directly at his brother. Yancy's eyes flickered, looking at Raleigh's face in his periphery, before locking back onto the road.

"Stop it," he said after a tense minute.

"Stop what?" Raleigh asked, squinting to better dissect his brother's facial expression as he answered.

"That… mind reading thing you do. Stop."

"_You're _the one who always got a kick out of how 'we should have been twins'," Raleigh pointed out easily. "Now sit still and let me get into your head."

"The only reason you need to get in my head is because I'm in _your _head," Yancy replied. "And what I see is freaking me out. You're like an overgrown puppy or something that just got a new toy. And I can't figure out why."

Raleigh looked out of the window again, heart beating away like he was afraid at being caught at something indecent. He could feel Yancy's eyes on him as he took in the scenery, remembering the run with Mako through the mist two days ago. The way her face looked as she fought to move faster, eyes focused and legs straining. The wind moving her hair back from her face. How she smiled at him, the way she said his name.

_Oh._

Raleigh pressed the knuckles of his fist into his mouth to fight the enamored smile that was trying to break free. He wasn't the kind of guy to run screaming from terrifying emotional precipices, but he had never taken such a large leap before. _Oh. _Oh, she fit. Oh, she was like a missing piece he never knew was missing until her face lit up, her hair damp from a shower, as he stood in the doorway of her classroom.

_Oh. He was in love._

The problem with the revelation was not that he wasn't totally up for it; it was that it took him completely from left field, like a mad slap to the face, like a knife between his ribs. He was in love with Mako Mori, and it ruined everything. Now their lunches weren't casual or fun—he would be fighting to impress her, keep her interested, worrying about what he was doing with his arms and leg, etc. Also, what if she found out? That would be a catastrophe, almost as bad as if she found out, and didn't return his affections. Why would she, anyway? He was a washed-up twenty-something, getting far too close to thirty-something, still living with and getting car rides from his older brother, a thirty-something who seemed perfectly happy to stay at home and watch Mean Girls late at night, laughing to himself. He owned too many sweaters and had had too few girlfriends. He, Raleigh Becket, was a mess with a teaching degree.

And he was in love. With Mako Mori.

Yancy pulled into the faculty parking lot too soon for Raleigh, who ended up lingering near his mailbox once in the main office, pulling out and putting in the same papers in an attempt to stall for time. Tendo noticed and decided not to say anything, for a time. Ten minutes passed. Papers out, shuffle, papers in.

Tendo poked his head inside the filing room again and narrowed his eyes. "Aren't you down for test monitoring today?" he asked suspiciously. Raleigh made a noise and then coughed to cover the high-pitched whine. Tendo gave him another look, like he was scanning a barcode in Raleigh's soul to pull out the necessary numbers and prices to all of his secrets. "If you hurry up now, you can catch the last of The Speech," the secretary informed him, and then ducked out, still figuring over Raleigh's behavior.

After considering the papers once more, Raleigh groaned and shoved them haphazardly into the box, heading out of the office and ignoring how Yancy tipped his chair back to eye him through the open doorway.

The testing would take place in the gymnasium, and was scheduled for a full week of five days: one day for each grade, and the fifth day for make-ups and independent study students. Foldable tables and chairs were set up in rows for the kids to sit at, but teachers were needed to hand out tests and make sure that no one would be cheating. At the end of the week, the test results would be sent in and received to be filed away for reporting to the district administration. The school with the highest average score would be one step closer to the Payload Award.

Raleigh slipped into the gymnasium with all the students for that day—freshmen—looking slightly aghast and astounded as they received The Speech—the same speech given before each round of standardized and AP testing session by the head of the counseling office. The teachers were all milling around in the background, too used to it to be anything other than offhandedly interested in listening. Along with Sasha and Hermann, Herc was standing at the back wall in his suit, looking like he wanted to be anywhere else. Raleigh could relate as he leaned against the wall as well, purposefully not looking around for Mako and turning his attention to the man standing at the front of the gym, with all the students facing him, delivering The Speech.

He just caught the tail end of it. "… now I know that there is all this talk about 'doing your best' but I also know that a passing test score is worth fifty bucks a pop, in school funding and rewards that you'll all be getting when your scores come in. So—what's the big idea, little fella?"

A student gaped up from his lap as a barrel-chested man in a red suit descended on him, gilded teeth glistening as he bared them in a savage smile. Hannibal Chau, guidance counselor, stood in front of him, having cut off his speech a few lines early.

"Um…" the poor kid said.

"Give me your phone." It was not a request. The phone was lifted from his lap and passed over to Mr. Chau, who held it up over his head.

"This," he said loudly, turning so that everyone could see the cellphone, "is exactly what I'm talking about." He threw the phone across the room; several students gasped loudly, but Herc caught it easily with one hand and rolled his eyes to show what he thought about Hannibal's performance.

"If you are caught _cheating," _Hannibal continued as if nothing had happened, "or sharing answers on your mobile devices, then your score, and the scores of anyone with your test version are rendered _void_. Do you know what that means?" he asked a frightened girl as he stalked like a shark through the rows of tables. She shook her head, too focused on Hannibal's welding-glasses-like eyewear to think clearly. "It _MEANS," _he raised his voice, "_THAT YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR FAILING EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEM. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!_"

The kids all made frightened noises and Hannibal looked perfectly pleased with himself.

"And if you are responsible for that," he continued with his voice at a normal, almost friendly level, "then you won't be answering to Mr. Hansen there. Or Mr. Pentecost." There were a few exhalations of relief. Then Hannibal pulled off his tinted glasses, showing off his impressive scar and glaring through one blind eye at the assembled students.

"You'll be answering to _me._"

There was a moment where Raleigh could almost _hear _each and every student swallow at the same time. With that final threat, The Speech was finished, and Raleigh was given a stack of scantron papers to hand out to the masses, up and down the rows. He kept his eyes down, saying small hellos to a few of his freshman students that he passed. He stopped when his elbow struck something.

He made the mistake of looking to see who it was.

Mako grinned briefly at him as she stood there next to him, her hands grasping a large bundle of pencils that she was handing out down the same row as Raleigh, going the opposite direction. His heart made a far-too-loud noise and he barely smiled back before quickly moving on. Mako was left in his wake looking slightly confused before she continued on as well.

It was petty and childish, but Raleigh was well and capable of being petty and childish. There was something with Mako—he had thought it platonic before, but now knew so much better that it definitely wasn't, at least on his side—something that was almost like a bridge between their minds. There was so much that they didn't have to say when eating lunch together or comparing workloads on their students. It was completely silent, a look here, a smile there. He had enjoyed it before, but now he was worried. How much of his soul could Mako rake through in a single look? Could she somehow look into his eyes and see that two nights ago he had dreamed of them running together, ending hot and sweaty with them together in the boy's showers, the tile cool against Raleigh's back as she kissed him against the wall? Could she see that?

He hoped not, but he also wasn't taking any chances.

Raleigh finished passing out papers and lounged lazily against one wall as Herc started the timer at the front of the gym, letting all the students know how much time was remaining before the first break. At his direction, Raleigh walked a circuit around the room, looking to make sure no one was checking out their neighbor's answers or checking out hidden cheat sheets. He looked up from the tables once to see Sasha whispering to Mako, looking at him over her shoulder occasionally, and then turned his attention back to his task. Not talking to Mako was a choice of his own, but it was painful and smoldering. The knife driven between his ribs had made a wound that was festering. Mako was the only thing to make it go away, he knew, but it was too risky.

Sasha passed by him once and gave him a withering glare. Raleigh could feel a headache starting. Now he had to worry about not letting his secret slip to Mako _and _worry about having a homemade bomb being placed in Yancy's car. One time Sasha had had her chemistry class recreate C4 from average home cleaning supplies and had started a fire in her room. She was not someone Raleigh wanted to be on the bad side of.

After a few more turns of the room Raleigh took a break, sitting at an empty table with a relieved sigh. The morning had started off so promisingly.

He stiffened as Mako snuck up behind him and took the other seat. He briefly considered getting up and moving, but that would be too obvious.

Something poked at his elbow with a crinkle. A paper was tucked underneath his elbow and Raleigh chanced a glance at Mako, seeing her looking rather disinterested at her nails. He unfolded the paper, a piece of blank scrap given out for the math section of the test.

On it, something was written in tiny, purposeful script:

_Two truths/one lie_

_1. This is boring_

_2. You are ignoring me_

_3. Sasha is a natural blonde_

He bit back some laughter and pulled over a spare pencil, circling number 3 rather guiltily. He slid the paper back over to Mako, who read it silently. It was better than speaking with her, since no eye contact was involved. The paper returned, with something else added:

_Your turn_

After a moment, Raleigh added his own question, and then under Herc's hawk-like eye got up and did a quick circuit. He returned to an empty table with the paper awaiting him. Mako was across the gym, watching a close cluster of girls.

The paper read in his own hand:

_Two truths/one lie_

_1. I was born in Alaska_

_2. I'm sorry for ignoring you_

_3. Yancy is my twin brother_

The number 3 had been carefully circled. He checked the back of the paper and Mako had drawn a small picture of a tiny cartoon girl with bobbed hair. It could only be her.

_Where is this girl from?_ If he had been asked two days ago if it was possible to fall in love with handwriting, he would have said no. But now he knew better.

He drew a Japanese flag of his own and then did a much sloppier doodle of a little boy with a mop of hair shivering in a parka surrounded by snow. _I was raised by snowmen_, he wrote, and then with hot cheeks abandoned the table to a circuit of the room, tapping the table occasionally to remind a student not to let their eyes wander.

The day passed slowly like this. Raleigh and Mako would duck in occasionally to add to their paper of notes and scribbles, posing questions and drawing bad, lopsided doodles in vastly different hands. Raleigh's was large and slanted messily; hers was tiny, methodical, and perfect. It healed the wound of loneliness in Raleigh's heart somewhat, with the added bonus of him not having to face her. Soon, he might be able to. But not now. Sasha and Herc watched them and muttered together out of earshot.

Facts on the paper grew and grew. Mako was an orphan. Her parents were sword makers—no, really. She had been adopted and raised for a time in England before moving to America and getting her teaching degree. The biggest surprise of the evening was that Stacker Pentecost had adopted her—it threw Raleigh for a loop until it made sense. The man was especially fond of her, and looked out for her constantly. She would sometimes talk to him outside of his office in Japanese for long stretches of time.

Raleigh let slip about his father's abandonment. His mother's cancer. Vagabonding with Yancy down from Anchorage before ending up at school together. It was personal—more personal than he had ever gotten with her face-to-face, but it was good. Filling.

The day passed faster than he would have wanted.

The students filed out, mentally spent, and the teachers all worked to gather the papers and pencils separately from the tests, which would be locked away under Tendo's careful eye and personal key. When everything was sorted, they were dismissed by Herc to have the rest of the day—two class blocks—free. A reward for volunteering.

Raleigh, against his better judgment, hung back to talk to Mako, waiting until the others had left the gym.

"Hey," he said uneasily.

She looked curiously up at him from beneath her straight black fringe. "Hey," she replied shortly, lifting her bag higher on her shoulder. There was tension in the air like lightning about to strike.

"So…" he said, "Sailor Moon, huh?"

She ducked her chin into her collar like she did when embarrassed, but she smiled nonetheless. "Animaniacs?" she poked back, and his smile grew wider before flickering out.

"I'm sorry. For brushing you off like that this morning." He was looking at her, straight at her, and his stomach was doing loop-de-loops, but so far so good. Nothing bad had come spilling out. "I've, uh, had a bad night." It was a good night, on the contrary, with a very vivid dream involving her, but she didn't need to know that.

She looked at him, and there was a warning flash in his mind of her diving deep for the truth.

"Okay," she said, and smiled up at him, enough to make his knees go weak and his mind to open up like clouds before the sun. She was radiant.

"Lunch?" he tried, pushing his luck. "There's a few things I definitely want clarified." He lifted his hand, holding onto their scratch piece of paper, not a blank spot to be seen.

She didn't need to say anything. He could see the _yes _in her eyes as she watched him as they walked together down the hallway. He was freshly aware of every inch of skin he had, the exact length of his limbs and the way his arms swung as they walked. But contrary to what he thought, it wasn't frightening. It was new, but it was like a weight being lifted from his body. She, impossibly enough, seemed to take the weight from him, fill up the empty places, smooth over the roughness. He never felt as happy as he was when he was with her, with her explaining the intricacies of Sailor Moon cosplay as a child to him. Her face was glowing and her hands moved artfully through the air as she talked, and he never wanted to listen to anything else ever again.

* * *

**Yancy Becket = Diego Klattenhoff = that dude from Mean Girls who made out with Regina in the projection booth.**

**This chapter was supposed to be the "drift" element, but ehh if I succeeded. *rests chin in hands***

**Review, please? Next chapter is a heartbreaker.**


	7. Modern Communications and You

**Dun-dun-DUNNN**

**Many thanks, as usual, to my beta-chan paradorx and many curses upon her shmancy new computer which makes things really very difficult for both of us.**

* * *

"You should ask her out," Yancy insisted on the phone, and Raleigh rolled his eyes. He walked through the main offices quickly, trying to get past the din that was Tendo complaining about missing his keys and his phone and ransacking his entire bullpen for them. Standardized testing week was over and Raleigh was back into the daily rush, which was even more rushed than usual with the tests locked up and awaiting grading and submission to the school board.

Yancy had been roped into monitoring the testing one morning when Newt called in fake-sick and it took him all of five minutes watching Mako and Raleigh scribbling over the same paper to come to the obvious conclusion. He didn't back down.

"Why don't you just ask her out?" Yancy asked on the phone. It was, by Raleigh's count, the twentieth time he had asked that weekend.

"You should watch the road while driving," Raleigh countered, getting tired quickly of the conversation that refused to end. Yancy had dropped him off at the school and then immediately joined the outflow of parents from the parking lot on his way to a doctor's appointment, and then called him to continue his speech from the ride to school.

"Raleigh, listen to me—"

"Good_bye_, Yance," Raleigh cut him off sharply. With a frustrated noise he ended the call and turned it off, for good measure, walking to class with a chip on his shoulder that melted when he spotted Mako through the open doors of their classroom, sharing a smile through the hallway.

* * *

A loud crash.

A screaming of metal, of glass.

Silence. Cold silence.

* * *

Tendo was not a man who could ever claim to hate his job. Of course there were days when he wondered why he ever thought being a _school secretary _was a viable career choice, but there were days when he would wonder how he could do anything else.

Today was turning into one of the former days.

"Has anyone seen my cellphone?!" he called out for what seemed like the twentieth time in as many minutes. Raleigh, on his own phone, barely glanced at him before stepping out with a sharp word to whoever he was talking to. Tendo wrote him off and was throwing papers around his desk and shouting inarticulate threats towards everything when the school phone rang. Probably another parent trying to call in an excuse for a late-awakened kid. He picked up the phone and jammed it between his cheek and shoulder, rummaging for his keys in the depths of his desk drawers and coming up empty.

"Pacific Rim High School, whaddya want?!" he demanded, and froze.

"Wait, what?" he dropped his papers on the ground and braced one hand on the desktop, cold ice running through his veins. "Jesus _Christ. _Okay. Okay. Yeah, he's…" he cursed loudly. "I'll get him." He dropped the phone into the cradle and vaulted his desk, bounding off of the walking mountain that was Aleksis Kaidanovsky in his hurry. "Aleksis, answer any calls for me, would you!" It was not a request.

The big man looked around the office blankly for a moment before delicately taking a ringing phone from the cradle and holding it to his ear. "Hello? Pacific Rim High School," he said, in a Russian accent so thick even he wouldn't be able to break it bare-handed.

* * *

Raleigh waited patiently for the morning announcements to come on, but when after a few minutes no loud metallic screeching came from the speakers he launched into a powerpoint for his first class block, timing his pauses so that he was looking out of the open door, across the hall, at Mako's open door, where occasionally she would look out and smile at him.

Until suddenly he glanced out of the window and Tendo was filling it as best as his short stature could, panting slightly like he had sprinted there.

"Um," Raleigh said as Tendo tried to catch his breath, "what's up?"

"I need to start jogging," Tendo wheezed, and gestured for Raleigh to follow him out the door. Confused, Raleigh did so with a gesture for his class to keep it down while he was out. Tendo swung the door shut behind him, and Raleigh felt every nerve in his body come alive.

"What's going on, Tendo? What's happened?"

Tendo's dark eyes honed in on Raleigh and a cold shiver flooded his veins. His voice was pitched low as he spoke. "Raleigh, you need to get to the hospital right now. Go. I'll watch your class—just go."

"What happened?" Raleigh repeated desperately. It felt like suddenly half of his mind had been ripped away, leaving a bright, blinding hole flooded with too many senses. The cold air was burning on his skin and the glare of sunlight over the Languages Building's roof was blinding.

Tendo took in and released a breath, going through lines in his head to try and word everything quickly. "There was a three car pileup downtown. Yancy—some asshole knifed into his car. They've got him at the hospital, he's going into surgery, and they called you as his emergency contact."

Raleigh's chest seized up and he could hear his breath whistling out through his clenched teeth. Tendo put one hand on his shoulder and shook him out of it. "Raleigh—hospital."

"Yeah. Yeah, yeah." With a look of pity that Raleigh physically flinched away from, Tendo stepped into his classroom and left Raleigh wandering vaguely out of the hallway, his mind in a tangle. _Yancy. Yancy. Yancy._

He was twenty years too old for this, dammit. Raleigh rubbed at his eyes and forced himself away from the grave his mind had dug back up, a grave filled with a half-empty pack of cigarettes and a young girl's angry smile.

"Raleigh."

Mako's voice washed over him like a tide and he took in a great big lungful of air, struggling to stay afloat. He was twenty years too old for this. He was twenty years past his mother's funeral.

"Mako, I—" his voice cracked and he weakly summoned up a single word: "Yancy."

"I heard." Her voice was soft and he wanted nothing more than to listen to her forever. "Come on, I'll give you a ride."

She placed herself by his side, an anchor, and led him to the faculty parking lot and into her sensible car, packing him in the passenger seat as he numbly moved through the motions. It was only once they were moving that Raleigh began to fully grasp that Mako was driving fast enough to break basically every law there ever was applying to cars. A part of him recognized that he should be scared shitless. Another part of him felt relieved.

"Are you alright?" Mako asked him, and from her tone he could gather it wasn't her first time asking.

Raleigh's mouth couldn't form the words, and he cast out silently with his mind, projecting it all as best as he could, thickening the air in the car with the things he couldn't say. His mother's funeral, his sister leaving. Having no one but Yancy, Yancy, Yancy—

"We should have been twins," he said, and his voice didn't crack. It was empty, totally empty. The empty hole in his mind blared with color, painful and sharp.

Glancing over, Mako took one hand off of the wheel and placed it on Raleigh's arm, in his lap and as tense as a bowstring. Her hand radiated a soothing numbness, and the hole in his mind contracted and closed like an old wound, like a scar—painful, but comforting, something constant.

Her hand stayed on his arm the rest of the drive to the hospital.

* * *

Raleigh could barely form a coherent sentence when confronted with a secretary. All he did was pant and stare at her, not understanding how she couldn't simply pick up on the panic rolling off of him. Mako, still by his side, stepped forward and requested Yancy Becket.

"He just got out of surgery," she said, aiming her answers at Mako rather than Raleigh. "They moved him to a room—24B." that was all Raleigh needed. With Mako hot on his heels he raced through the hallways, remembering when he was a boy in Anchorage and he had run through similar hallways with Yancy on their way to visit Mom. He was twenty years older now, but not stronger.

The door marked with 24B was closed. Raleigh threw it open and entered in a great rush, Mako staying in the doorway.

"Yancy-!" Raleigh froze in the doorway, looking down at his brother.

"Hey man," Yancy said, sitting on the edge of the bed, fully dressed save for his shoes. "Can you help me out here? I can't tie my laces with one hand." He wiggled the tips of his fingers, emerging from a cast on his forearm.

"_Yancy_," Raleigh sighed, the world slipping off of his shoulders, and with two short steps he was across the room. His arms tightened around his brother and he laughed like his heart was breaking.

"Whoa." Yancy reeled back slightly, and then patted Raleigh's back. "Hey. Hey, it's okay, I'm okay. Jesus, Raleigh." He wrestled out of his brother's arms and pushed him away so he could look at him. "What's the matter, why are you here?"

"They called the school, man. Said you were in a car accident, that you were in _surgery_…"

"I got some shrapnel removed," Yancy explained gently. "They didn't even put me under."

Raleigh laughed again and rubbed fitfully at his eyes. "I thought you were _dying_, Yance."

Yancy's face went slack. "_Jesus_, Raleigh," he said again, and pulled him in for another embrace.

"Why didn't you call?" Raleigh asked into his brother's shoulder. "I thought you were _dying, _why didn't you call to tell me you were okay?"

They parted again, and Yancy looked blankly at Raleigh. "I tweeted it," he said simply.

After a long moment Raleigh laughed, and his heart _was _breaking. The pieces flew around the room and one shard landed painfully in the center of Mako's chest as she stood in the doorway and watched Raleigh laugh, a relieved smile overtaking his face.

_Oh._

* * *

Mako was called back to school as Yancy and Raleigh were finishing up paperwork and she left with barely a word between her and Raleigh aside from him holding gently onto her upper arm and telling her "Thank you," in a deep, raw-throated voice. She rushed out and both Becket brothers watched her disappear in the distance, both with different expressions.

They called up a cab together, with Raleigh calling Tendo to stop him from acting like an expectant father—he cursed Yancy out for a good two minutes on speakerphone—and took a free day. At the duplex, for a reason neither brother could voice they stayed on Yancy's side, sitting on the couch with beers and boxes of poptarts (a staple of their college days), and marathoned Sons of Anarchy on Netflix. The day grew long and they settled into a lazy haze. Yancy popped a couple of pain pills.

After several hours Yancy finally found a voice. He cleared his throat and settled his shoulders, slumping against the couch next to Raleigh. "Ral, I'm your big brother—"

"Yancy," Raleigh cut him off. "Don't. Not now."

"No, I have to say this," Yancy pressed. "I'm your brother and I love you, and I thought for a long time that that would be enough. When Dad left… when Mom died… hell, I'm still not sure what Jasmine did, in the end, but I thought that I could be everything. We were basically twins, after all-I could get in your head, there were no secrets. Well, that was my mistake, and it's my fault. I can't be everything for you anymore, Raleigh. You need to open up your head and let someone else in." he wasn't being cruel or cold, he was being his same protective self, looking out for his little brother with big dreams.

"I know," Raleigh said quietly.

For a moment they sipped their beers and watched the television in mutual silence.

Then Yancy spoke up. "Besides, you really should ask her out."

With a tolerant sigh, Raleigh put his palm on Yancy's bandaged forearm and pushed down.

* * *

***loud evil laughter* Gosh I do love Yancy's twitter.**

**Yancy/Diego got a Mean Girls reference last chapter, so Sons of Anarchy is Charlie Hunnam's turn. Good show.**


	8. Psychology of Nuclear Fusion

**Hello again! It's been a while. I need to write my college essay, but instead I stared at this for four hours today. I'm kinda ehh about it, I dunno.**

**Many thanks to beta-chan paradorx, long may she uphold my honor.**

**ALSO: Yancy is now on twitter! Find him at NurseBecket**

* * *

"This is just weird," Yancy commented as Raleigh strolled into his office, twirling a fresh new keychain around one finger. Raleigh replied only with a grin.

"Miss me?" he asked, collapsing onto the medical cot with ease. Yancy weighed his options.

"I miss your gas money," he finally said. Raleigh rolled his eyes. When they had gone down to the dealers for a new car to replace the one Yancy had been nearly crushed to death in, they had struck up an awesome deal—for _two _cars.

"I'm still only half convinced that you have a license at all," Yancy continued. "Like, when did that happen?"

Raleigh made a noncommittal noise, a verbal shrug, and watched with a lopsided grin as Yancy attacked the cast on his arm in an attempt to scratch at it. "Hey can you get me a soda from the fridge?" he asked off-handedly as he itched.

"… The fridge?" Raleigh repeated carefully.

"Yeah, the fridge. Keeps things cold, used for beverages."

"Yancy, the fridge is right next to you." Raleigh pointed out.

His older brother hefted up his still plaster-encased forearm. "I almost died yesterday," he said in a pitiful voice, "have mercy."

With an exaggerated sigh Raleigh pushed himself to his feet and retrieved a soda can from Yancy's small fridge against the wall. He then shook it vigorously and placed it on his brother's desk before beating a hasty retreating, snickering to himself. Yancy shouted abuse after him.

In the main offices, Tendo was muttering to himself and typing. Raleigh stopped at his desk after retrieving his papers from his inbox, rapping his knuckles on the ledge around the bullpen to get his attention.

"What?" Tendo demanded hotly.

"What's the matter with you?" Raleigh asked, leaning on the ledge surrounding the bullpen.

Tendo looked around for eavesdroppers before leaning in secretively. "The tests from last week? They're missing."

"Missing?" Raleigh felt cold wash down his spine. "How could they be missing?"

A helpless shrug. "Hell if I know. Stacker's keeping it close to the vest, hoping that they can show up, maybe they shipped out without getting scanned or something. I don't know, but I'm worn out looking for them." His elbow knocked into his soundboard and it let loose a wild noise. "And I think someone broke my toy, man."

Raleigh could offer little solace or advice beyond a few words of goodwill and a promise to keep an eye out—for the tests, not the soundboard hater, who really could be anyone on the staff. What he was going to look out for, he had no idea, but it seemed to lessen Tendo's mad descent into a panic attack.

He walked into his classroom as the bell was ringing, and after the morning announcements (sing-song and rhyming, with some rockabilly music played from Tendo's soundboard, which seemed overly sensitive) he was setting up his PowerPoint, a mouthy student towards the front raised his hand and called out, "You were pretty late today."

"And you bullshit your free response reading questions," Raleigh responded. "We all have our problems."

"I think he means that you usually show up early and talk to Ms. Mori," a girl in the back added without raising her hand.

Raleigh paused and surveyed his students. "If any of you follow Yancy on twitter, I _will _fail you," he ordered warily. He noted a few sheepish looks but for the most part they all looked serenely at him. "Frankly you guys, I'm your _teacher_, not your source of entertainment. My personal life is my own."

They all seemed to back down and kept quiet during his presentation, although a few were muttering about how he shut his door, rather than keep it open like he usually did to make eyes at Ms. Mori across the hallway. He ignored them as best as he could, but did lapse and throw a whiteboard eraser at the boy in the front who would not shut up about it towards the end of the class block. His second class was mostly a rehashing of the first, with similar questions and accusations, with considerably more things thrown to problem kids. The other eraser, a stress ball, a wadded-up lump of paper.

When nutrition break came around, Raleigh ducked his head low and headed out the door with the mass of his students, who all looked at him like he was crazy. Which he probably was.

Once inside the masses flocking to and fro, he knocked right into a small, hyperactive ball of inked skin and black leather. Newt almost fell down before Raleigh steadied him, but he couldn't save Newt's palm full of quarters as they rolled underfoot of the throng in the hallways. Newt looked forlornly at his lost snack money and at the quickly emptying vending machine over Raleigh's shoulder.

"Sorry, man," Raleigh told him. "Lunch is on me."

"Nah, it's okay," Newt waved it away, and then observed Raleigh more minutely, through his thick-rimmed hipster glasses. "What's up with you, dude? You look harried."

"Just trying to go see how Yancy's doing during the break," he answered quickly, checking over and around Newt for a flash of blue and black hair in the masses. Newt noticed.

"Are you looking for someone?" he asked shortly, and then he answered himself, "What's going on between you and Mako anyway?"

"Nothing," Raleigh said, too quickly. "I've got to go."

Newt eyed his back as he hurried away, and his mind began the dangerous thing it sometimes did: thinking.

* * *

"You have _got _to be kidding me," Yancy groaned.

Raleigh made a strangled noise. "I've lost control of my life," he decided.

Yancy snorted. "I'll say."

Raleigh dragged his hands down his face. "She just… she knows so much about me! I mean, if that isn't a bad enough situation, I don't want to, I dunno… accidentally make it worse." He couldn't articulate how strange it was to know that Mako was walking around with all of his fears and hopes inside of her head; that she had the image of him, teary-eyed, holding onto his brother like he was a lifeline. It shook him down, left him defenseless.

In his defense, _she _also seemed to be avoiding him, as well.

A wadded-up ball of paper ricocheted off of Raleigh's head and he cracked open an eye. Yancy was looking at him sternly.

"You're a mess," Yancy proclaimed. "You need to sort out your feelings for her, bro. Take a free day, but come tomorrow…" he pointed a threatening finger. "You're going to stop being a wimp or I'm locking you in a closet together."

Raleigh sat up. "You wouldn't."

Yancy's gaze was dangerous. "Try me."

Raleigh beat a hasty retreat at the end of the break, leaving Yancy alone.

"Tendo," Yancy groaned loudly after the bell had gone off. "_Tendo!"_

"What?" Tendo snapped.

Yancy waited. Shouted, "Tendo!" again. With a loud, pointed sigh, Tendo got out of his seat and walked to stand in the doorway of Yancy's connected office. Yancy had his feet propped comfortably up on his desk and his hands folded behind his head. His phone buzzed on the desktop.

"What?" Tendo repeated tersely.

"Answer my phone," Yancy lorded.

Tendo blinked. "You're kidding. It's right in front of you."

"I almost died yesterday," Yancy rallied. "Pity me."

A tick began in Tendo's jaw. He _really _did not have time for this. He walked forward, picked up Yancy's cell, swept a thumb across the screen to answer it, and said sweetly, "Hello this is Yancy Becket's Phonesex Hotline, how may I direct your dick?"

Yancy let out a strangled sound and threw himself across his desk. Tendo dodged, throwing Yancy's phone at his head, and retreated to his bullpen with Yancy yelling incoherently after him. Herc stood in the doorway of his office, observing, for half a second before he decided that he had better things to do with his time and shut his door. Pentecost's door was already shut, as usual.

Tendo groaned into his hand as he returned to his desk, eyeing the pile of search work that he needed to get done. He then weighed his options and decided to screw all of it.

He swiveled his chair around and gave his full attention to his soundboard.

* * *

"Mr. Geiszler?"

"Hmm, what?"

"Class started."

Newt blinked and looked up from his laptop, noticing that his class had in fact already arrived and was sitting there quietly, waiting his instruction. "Oh! Right. I thought it was break," he explained.

"Break ended fifteen minutes ago," one student commented dryly. Newt made a face.

"Well, I'm a little sidetracked right now," he said.

He couldn't see who responded, but he did hear the muttered, "What else is new?" drifting in from the back of the class. He steeled his jaw and shoved his thick glasses farther up his nose.

"What are we supposed to do today?" a kid off to one side asked, hand in the air. It was a common question in his class.

"I don't know," Newt said, and flinched as the same student in the back scoffed loudly. "I don't _care_," he amended. He cast his mind around helplessly, arms waving wildly. "Clone something!"

"Clone something?" the class gasped.

"Yeah!" Newt latched on to the idea. "Here," he dug around in one pocket of his tight black skinny jeans and came up with a key, which he threw heedlessly to the closest student, "Here's the key to the chemical cabinet. Go nuts."

A nervous burst of conversation bubbled up and Newt sighed loudly, frustrated. "Either that or you can go next door to Sasha's. I think she has a class now. Sasha!" He pulled open their connecting door. "Do you have a class right now?" A loud fiery explosion of blue flames responded and he shut the door. "She has a class right now."

The students all decided that they had a better chance of surviving the year if they stuck to Newt's cluttered and overstocked Biology room rather than brave the short stroll into Mrs. Kaidanovsky's Chemistry class. They began to take stock of what was in the tall chemical cabinet against the wall.

"How much is this assignment worth?" a class representative asked him.

"A test grade," Newt snapped. "Now, get to it." He waved his arms again like a conductor and his class erupted in hurried attempts to get to the ragged computers against one wall and the chemical cabinet.

Newt was not a patient guy. He rushed and sprinted until he tripped and majorly hurt himself, all in pursuit of the one thing he really loved: knowledge. With three . under his belt many of his rock-metal friends were quick to ask why he would settle for teaching public high school. All he could ever think to respond was that he liked the work, loved the people. Here, him rushing around with his hands stained from one dissection or another didn't get him laughed at. He was considered one of the best science teachers because he gave himself utterly and completely to the subject he taught. Kids could grill him for hours with any questions they might have and he would answer. They never touched a textbook in his class, just experimented and learned at their own pace. Newt never did anything by half. Which was sometimes good (good for work, good for grades, and good for the few students who didn't snicker at him under their breath from the back of the classroom), and sometimes bad.

He wasn't sure yet where his current plan was going to end up landing on the scale of his life. He hoped for the former.

He left his class in the hurry to research how something could get cloned in the first place, with a little bit of guilt, and headed next door—not to Sasha's. The other direction.

"Hermann," he said without preamble, his short frame shoved inside the doorway of Hermann's math class, "I need your help."

"What?" Hermann asked. Newt wasn't sure whether he was referring to his announcement's purpose or just questioning in the first place why Newt would need his help, ever.

Newt said just two things: "Mako," and "Raleigh."

Hermann put down his chalk and addressed his AP Calculus class. "I'll be right back."

* * *

Yancy ground his teeth and tried to shift his weight. From how often Raleigh barged in for the express purpose of lying on the medical cot, he was finding it hard to get into a comfortable position. He blamed Tendo, fully and completely.

"Can you shut that off?!" he demanded, not for the first time.

Tendo's voice was barely audible over the racket he was making with his soundboard. "No!" He was warping together sounds, alone in the bullpen, into something that Yancy could only describe as rockabilly dubstep. Normally his noise-making was tolerable, but whatever was wrong with his soundboard made it extra sensitive and extra _loud._

Yancy grumbled and pushed himself off of the medical cot, an idea forming in his mind. He dug around his desk drawers and found an air horn with a stopper in the flute that Raleigh had given him last year at the start of the football season. He had never used it. Not until now, that was.

He wound tape around the top button, holding it down with the stopper still in place. It was barely inside, meant to keep the flute from being cracked when first purchased, with the added effect of keeping it silent. Yancy crept up to the door to his office, which opened right next to Tendo's bullpen, across from where he kept his desk. Tendo's back was to Yancy as he screwed around with his soundboard, coaxing noise from it.

Yancy drew back his arm, and threw.

The air horn hit the ground inside the bullpen, and the stopper came loose, allowing the full, ear-shattering explosion of noise to come out. Tendo fell out of his chair, the soundboard crashing down next to him, and screamed for Yancy's head.

Smug, Yancy shut the door to his office.

* * *

Hermann looked down his nose at Newt, even though they were basically eye-to-eye. "What is it?" he demanded.

Newt hastily outlined his meeting with Raleigh in the hallway. "The tension on him was _brutal_, let me tell you—they need some serious help."

"And what do I have to do with it?" Hermann asked, shifting weight off of his bad leg. Standing out in the open hallway, they had to keep their voices low and hushed. Occasionally Newt could hear loud cursing and crashing coming from his classroom.

"Well for one, you care about them in your own, stuffy-British-uncle kind of way," Newt said, and then sped up to cover Hermann's attempt to refute him, "but besides that, it's bugging pretty much everyone on the staff."

Hermann's smile was twisted in the familiar way. "And I was your first choice for a partner-in-crime?" he asked, clearly expecting Newt to disagree.

"Yeah!" Newt exclaimed, and Hermann was quick to hide his pleasant surprise, "but then again this plan is like, _minutes_ in the making, so just run with it."

"But there is a plan?" Hermann grasped at verbal straws.

Newt opened his mouth. Closed it. "_Figuring out a plan_," he decided, "is _in _the plan."

Hermann rolled his eyes. "Fantastic," he muttered, but his tone was warm, and Newt grinned victoriously.

* * *

Yancy nodded off to sleep, tilting his desk chair back with ease. He was drifting on the edge, dreaming of ice and cold water, when suddenly it wasn't a dream, and he was drowning in cold water.

Tendo threw another water balloon, hitting Yancy square in the chest, toppling him over backwards. Yancy was too busy spitting the remains of the first balloon out of his mouth to shout anything, but his eyes screamed _murder _as he glared over his desk at Tendo, standing smug in the doorway to his office.

"I hate… you…" Yancy growled, extracting rubber from his teeth.

With a smarmy grin, Tendo held up his hands innocently. "I saw a movie like this once," he said, and reached his hands back over his head, grabbing something attached between his shoulder blades. He came up with a watergun, and blasted Yancy with a thick stream just as he was standing up.

"_TENDO CHOI,"_ Yancy roared, and leapt over his desk to chase after the cackling secretary. "_THIS CAST ISN'T SUPPOSED TO GET WET_."

Tendo skirted around his bullpen, heading for the front entrance of the offices instead, with Yancy hot on his heels.

Herc emerged from his office, a sheaf of papers in hand. "Stacker," he called out as he crossed the hallway, eyes focused on his paperwork, "Did you see this memo? I—" the rest of his sentence was lost in a grunt as Tendo and Yancy barreled into him full speed, kicking and punching as they went down.

"The hell?!" he demanded, and both parties froze guiltily. Yancy had one hand on Tendo's ankle, and Tendo was about to pull on Yancy's hair. Herc blinked, looking at them.

"Do I want to know?" he asked carefully.

"Uh…" Tendo stuttered, "He started it?"

Yancy tugged reproachfully on his leg. "I did _not _start it!"

Herc did not raise his voice. He simply stood, and looked at them. "I don't care who started it," he said with horrifying calmness, "but if it doesn't stop, I _will _finish it." With that final threat, he gathered his papers, and entered Pentecost's office, closing the door behind him.

"I think my life just flashed before my eyes," Yancy said, slumping to the floor.

"Ditto," Tendo sighed, relaxing as well. Then, he pounced. "I saw a lot of your mom." He was up and running before Yancy even got his feet under him.

* * *

"This is hopeless," Hermann objected. "Not to mention a breach of privacy."

"It's their classrooms, not their bathrooms," Newt pointed out. "Now, _shush._" The two of them slinked along the wall towards Mako's room, keeping low. Once they reached her windows, they slowly peeked up, and saw her standing at the front of the class, the whiteboard behind her covered in all kinds of kanji. As she spoke, every few moments she would look to her door and then look quickly away. Newt pointed, tracing a line from her door, directly across the hall—to Raleigh's room. The two quickly, or, in Hermann's case, hobbled as quickly as possible, across the way to Raleigh's windows, where a mirror of the same pitiful ritual was performed. Raleigh's ended with him throwing something at a student who undoubtedly called him out on the lovelorn looks he was giving his shut door.

Their observation complete, the two geniuses returned to the hallway outside their own classes to plot.

"I keep thinking," Newt muttered, "and all I'm coming up with are plots to bad romcoms. This is ridiculous."

Hermann harrumphed quietly, but didn't continue down the obvious route to insult how Newt's default setting was on _ridiculous_, for which Newt was grateful. Finally, a spark. It shone in his eyes for a moment before being snuffed out.

"I had an idea, for like, a second there."

"Well?" Hermann asked. "What's my point in being here if not for peer review?"

"I was just thinking… I got that sweet gig chaperoning the school dance on Friday," Newt explained. Hermann nodded. He too was slated to keep track of the teenage masses at the venue Friday night, a few hours of hard work which reaped great benefits, as chaperones were not required to host early morning detentions.

"And I was thinking, how great would it be if we got Mako and Raleigh together at the dance?" Newt finished, and then waved it away. "Never mind. I'd give up my spot, but it's only one." He settled back into thought and missed what Hermann said next. "What?"

Hermann colored slightly. "I said that I… I would be willing to sacrifice my spot. For the greater good." He puffed out his chest.

Newt blinked. "You'd do that with me?" he asked, shocked.

Hermann's face grew slightly redder. "If it's for Ms. Mori," he said, "Yes. I would."

Newt's face brightened, a smile fit to break his face taking over. "Yeah, Hermann!" he cheered. "Okay, at lunch, you ask Mako to cover for you, and I'll ask Raleigh. We _can't _let either of them find out."

Excitement was catching, and Hermann was smiling as well, echoing back Newt's body language. "Yes. Yes, good plan. Good." He looked slightly ridiculous, and Newt was inches away from hugging him when all the windows in his classroom blew out with a concussive force.

"And keep the noise down, will you," Hermann said stiffly as he walked into his classroom, "I'm trying to _teach_ in here." He slammed the door on Newt's horrifically huge smile.

"Sure thing!" he called out, but it was drowned out by the fire alarms starting up.

* * *

"Are you alright?" Raleigh asked, standing up from his desk as Newt let himself into the classroom. The students all stared at how he was covered in ash and something glowing blue. His hair was slightly smoking.

Newt waved a hand. "No big deal, just a cloning mishap in the lab today. But I actually need you to do me a favor."

It was hard to deny someone who looked like a poster child for why radiation poisoning was bad. "Sure. Name it."

"Take my place and chaperone the dance on Friday?"

* * *

Mako answered the door, surprised that anyone would knock. Hermann stood on the outside of her door, looking rather serious, his back held ramrod straight.

"Dr. Gottlieb!" Mako greeted him. "Is something wrong?"

Hermann had looked very happy with how she remembered to address him formally, as he preferred. But then he placed a mask of sorrow on his face, almost too well to be believed.

"I'm afraid, Ms. Mori, that I'm in a bit of a predicament," he began. "I seem to have had a scheduling mishap, and cannot make it to the dance on Friday."

"Do you want me to cover for you?" she cut to the point quickly.

He bobbed his head. "Would you? That's wonderful, thank you very much." With a bit more posturing and thanking her, he walked down the hallway, and she missed how once there, a small figure covered in ash met him and high-fived him triumphantly.

* * *

"Hey, Yancy, I'm about to head…" Raleigh stepped into Yancy's office. "…out."

"Go ahead," Yancy said, spreading his arms out as far as he could, "take your best shot."

Raleigh began to nod, slowly, taking in his brother's appearance: paint and shredded strips of paper in his hair, his clothes damp with several noticeable staples in the material, and one hand handcuffed to his filing cabinet.

"Yeah," Raleigh drawled after what seemed like ages, "_I'm _a mess."

He left Yancy to his fate and entered the main offices, going to drop a note in Herc's box about taking on the chaperone gig. He stopped in his tracks.

Tendo jerked a chin at him. "What're you looking at?" He was handcuffed to his desk, in a similar state as Yancy.

Raleigh gave no reply.

* * *

**For clarification, Herc handcuffed them. Because.**

**See you next time, in "Interpretive Dance"**


	9. Interpretive Dance

**Yup.**

**Many thanks to my tearful beta-chan, paradorx. Also, Yancy's twitter is a thing. Find him at NurseBecket~**

* * *

Raleigh, keys in hand, ducked low and attempted to sneak into the garage. He got halfway there before the door partitioning their duplex burst open and Yancy physically attacked him.

"Yancy!" Raleigh wriggled in a headlock, suddenly ten years old again, "Yancy, let me go!"

"Only," Yancy allowed, releasing him warily, "if you change your shirt!"

"Don't you have better things to do?" Raleigh demanded, straightening his sweater where Yancy had mangled it.

Yancy counted off on his fingers. "I watched all my Netflix DVDs, Tendo is chaperoning the dance with you, and Chuck is doing some father-son thing with Herc."

Raleigh made a face. "I still don't know why you're friends with that dick."

Yancy shrugged. "It is far better to be on the right hand of the devil than in his path."

"You stole that from The Mummy."

"And you're changing the subject, when you should be changing your shirt."

"It's a shirt!" Raleigh protested, "for the purpose of wearing out!"

"It's a _sweater_," Yancy hissed, "for the purpose of making you look like a dork!"

"Well, what should I wear then?" Raleigh threw his arms in the air, deciding not to mention that it had taken him a long while to decide on the precise sweater to wear, weighing colors and material in an attempt to look his best during the school dance.

Within ten minutes, Raleigh was parading for Yancy in a white button-down and a blazer he couldn't remember ever buying, let alone wearing, while his brother nodded to himself.

"Better," Yancy lorded. "I mean, you actually look like a teacher."

"I _am_ a teacher!"

Yancy shrugged. It was as much of an approval as Raleigh was going to get.

"Then I'm leaving." Raleigh turned on his heel and made a break for the garage door. Yancy was about to call out after him when Raleigh flipped him off behind his back. He could almost hear how his brother smiled. With that at his back, Raleigh finally escaped into the garage and drove as calmly as he could. It would be an easy night, chaperoning in Newt's place with whoever was bracketed. Easy.

* * *

Because of the large size of the classes allowed at the dance, it was not taking place at the school, but at a venue downtown. Raleigh arrived early, as he was supposed to, greeting Tendo at the door. The decorations had been handled by a student organization, decked out in blue and silver streamers. The main dance floor was crowned by a stage with a triple set of spindecks for the entertainment. Raleigh was taking it all in when he felt a presence beside him. Even without turning, he knew who it was. It filled the air in his lungs with warmth. Frightening warmth.

"Hello," he said to Mako, who echoed his stiff smile.

"Hello," she said. She was gorgeous, radiant, beautiful, and slightly awkward in a bright red dress that could only have come from Sasha's closet, along with the smoky makeup around her eyes. They were both out of place, out of their element, standing in the middle of the empty dance floor looking at a vacant stage.

With that one awkward passing of pleasantries done, almost like an alert, "Warning, I am also here", she walked back towards were Sasha was standing with a judgmental look and crossed arms. Raleigh's smile was still frozen on his face as Tendo stood next to him, eyes flickering back and forth, taking in the new turn of events.

"I'm going to kill Newt," Raleigh said cheerfully, through bared teeth. Tendo chuckled and clapped him on the shoulder.

"Oh," Tendo laughed, leading Raleigh off towards the entrance, "this is going to be _fun_."

Raleigh pushed him casually into the wall, but Tendo only laughed harder.

* * *

Tendo outlined the schedule for him. When the students entered they would check their tickets and ID cards, and then after the first half hour of entry, it would fall to student body reps to handle the door traffic. Tendo, Raleigh, Mako, and Sasha were chaperoning, with the cycle of two people on the dance floor, and two people at the food station, switching off every hour. Simple in theory, arguably challenging in execution when it came to Raleigh not making an even bigger fool of himself. Raleigh frankly didn't know what he expected, but it did hit him out of left field when a giggling gaggle of girls walked up to his ticket station, one of which undoubtedly had a picture of him shirtless saved on her phone.

He stamped their tickets and they walked off tittering about getting dances from him later on. He mentally punched himself, and mentally kicked a mental image of Chuck in the mental nuts.

After half an hour, Tendo nudged him with a shoulder. "Time to get the show started," he said, "grab a dance with Mako for me, will you?" Raleigh dutifully ignored him.

Mako was standing off to one side with Sasha, talking quietly and hurriedly to her, looking over her shoulder as if for eavesdroppers in the crowd of boredly milling kids. Her met her eyes and she quickly looked away. Great. They were still in some strange state of being opposite poles on a magnet. Raleigh headed off towards the food tables and stopped as Tendo mounted the stage with a microphone in hand.

"While the night is still young," Tendo announced, "I give you, your master entertainers, a musical group unlike any other… _three times _the power, _three times _the strength, and _three times the cold, hard bassline—_The Wei Tang Brothers!" he sang out and headed off of the main stage, to the applause of the students. The lights dimmed, and artificial fog poured onto the stage. Lights and lasers danced through the murk, and a single shadow appeared in the back of the stage. It grew closer, lights behind it keeping it shadowed, and at the last minute before approaching the three deck spreads, it separated into the three Wei Tang brothers. Cheung, Hu, and Jin. Hu wore sunglasses and a white wifebeater; Cheung, on his right, wore a leather jacket, and Jin, on his left, had a hat turned backwards. Raleigh had to raise an eyebrow at their getups. But then again he couldn't judge, having only seen them in their normal collection of tracksuits and exercise wear.

As one, the triplets raised their right hands high above their heads and then slammed them down, triggering the first riff of sound from their setup. They went to work, and the students poured onto the dance floor. Raleigh was impressed; he knew that the Tang Clan DJ-ed on the weekends for fun at large venues, but he had yet to see them in action. It was incredible. They followed the beat of the music, sometimes in sync and other times passing the dance from one to another, like it was a ball they were moving down the court. Students were drinking it up, moving like their young lives depended on dropping it low, lower than anyone else. Some kid was breakdancing.

Raleigh saw Mako beginning a round of the dance floor, and nearly ran to the food table. There, he caught a kid already trying to tip a flask into the punch bowl behind his back. He took the kid by the arm and snatched away the flask.

"Really?" he asked, and took a swig, grimacing. "This is disgusting. Get out of here." He propelled the boy towards the exit, and he sulked to it. Raleigh pocketed the flask.

Slowly, time moved, blurred by the music and the lightshow the Wei Tang brothers put on. Cheung stripped out of his leather jacket and a few girls shrieked. "Take it off!" one girl shouted, higher than the others. Raleigh rolled his eyes.

After a while, Tendo came and relieved him of his duties, sending him to the floor to stop students from disguising fornicating as dancing. Raleigh was on the dance floor, and he was keenly aware that Mako was watching him from where she stood by the snack tables with Sasha, keeping an eye on the students taking a break from dancing. Raleigh still watched, and felt ice slide into his gut, as Tendo withdrew from the crowd, talked to Mako and Sasha, and then with a hand on the small of her back, propelled her into the fray. He and Sasha then fistbumped.

Raleigh had to think quickly. He wanted nothing more than to sit down with Mako and talk about where it was they were going—why she was so anxious around him after the drive to the hospital, how much he was drawn to her—but that was not something he could do in what was quickly becoming nothing more than an underaged dance club. On the stage, one of the brothers was doing a handstand on his deck. Raleigh backed towards the edge of the crowd, and turned sharply to find some exit.

He bumped right off of the tiny stone wall that was Sasha Kaidanovsky. "You take one step off of that dance floor before the hour is up," she warned, pushing him back onto it, "and I will personally remove your testicles."

Completely taking her at her word, Raleigh held up his hands and backed into the crowd with her eyes glittering at him like a hawk's. He was soon swallowed by students, and his back bumped into someone less hard than Sasha. He turned around, apologies starting.

Mako looked at him, face flushed. Raleigh didn't see how Tendo, off to one side, threw his hands in the air in triumph, having been ushering Mako in the right direction from the sidelines.

She was still looking at him. _Oh._ He wanted nothing more than to ignore the awkwardness between them and start fresh—Raleigh grabbed at this spark of an idea before he could really think about it, the music and the heat of the other bodies getting to his head, almost intoxicating him, and shouted above the sound, "Wanna dance?"

A challenge glinted in her eyes as she surveyed him, looking for sincerity. His response was to bob his shoulders to the beat, horribly. With a wide grin, she grabbed his hand and pulled him deeper into the heart of darkness and moving bodies.

* * *

It was like they were running again.

The crush made their dancing more like synchronized bobbing and weaving, sticking close together, occasionally placing protective hands on shoulders and arms to keep them together in the sea of dancing students. Her heart was the beat of the music and it was in his blood like a drug, making his head swim with pure _Mako_, how she moved her hips and shook her shoulders, the blue of her hair striking under the colored lights. They moved, never getting too close or touching too long, all the ice between them melting into the music and the movement. It involved no thought, only their reactions to each other. It was almost like a game, like a race they had run—if Raleigh moved one way, how would Mako react? How long could they play the game, holding each other's hearts in their hands, without making contact? How long could they make their one night without expectations last?

Mako spun through the air, dress and hair fanning, and Raleigh caught her, dipped her, let her escape and chased her. The lights pounded into his mind and the music drowned everything he was saying to himself, every negative thought he had been embracing hours earlier. He wasn't thinking about how much she knew, all of his shameful, secret things, how much she fit the empty cavern in his chest he didn't even know was empty until she slipped by again and again and again—

All he thought about was that if she was his current, all he needed to do was drift.

* * *

Her skin was alive.

Like a jolt of electricity, his hands—warm and smooth and strong—brushed against her and made her move, and still he followed. He was a constant point that didn't hold her down, a polar north she could follow all the way home if she was lost.

She looked into his eyes and they were warm, so warm, and her favorite shade of blue. She danced and he moved and the music bled them together, _oh, oh, oh, _her heartbeat reminded her that he was in her mind, in her chest, his name pushed in among her teeth and her tongue every time she opened her mouth to talk to him. _Tell him_, the pressure in her lungs told her, _tell him how he was a current, a live wire, waking you up and keeping you steady._

He was a current, and all she needed to do, with his eyes on her and his heartbeat next to hers, was drift.

* * *

"Mr. Wei Tang."

Cheung jumped slightly, and looked offstage in the wings, and saw none other than Stacker Pentecost standing there in his customary suit, waiting. Cheung signaled his brothers and got them looking in the right direction.

When Stacker had their full attention he spoke again, barely audible above the pounding bassline. "Cut the music." It took them a while to catch his meaning, helped along with a pointed look towards the heart of the dance floor, where two people were most definitely not students were dancing. With a shared grin, the triplets spun their records down, slowly, until the music was melting around the dancers, seguing into something slow and melodic.

In the center of the students, Mako and Raleigh were frozen.

Stacker nodded his approval to the triplets and drifted off to wherever he had come from.

* * *

Slowly, cautiously, giving her ample time to change her mind and shrug him off, Raleigh placed his hands on her waist, and she brought her hands up around his neck, bringing them close together. He could feel her, the rise and fall of her chest next to his, the aftermath of their dance keeping her heart rate going. His heart beat alongside, swollen and one hundred percent smitten.

She placed her head upon his chest, and he wondered if it was possible for his heart to give her a Morse code message—_I love you. _His chin rested on the top of her head and he breathed in the smell of her hair, intoxicating. His chin slipped down, and his lips were against the crown of her head. He expected her to move. She didn't.

They swayed to the music together, bodies moving in tandem without any need to guide—they just were. She was all his missing pieces, and Raleigh felt everything he wanted to say to her filtering through his mind, flowing into his mouth. He tasted confessions on his teeth and poetry on his tongue. The words were pushing, begging, and he was almost dizzy with them—_your eyes make me believe, I don't know in what, they make me drown in the best way, your legs and your arms, your mouth and your neck and how you duck your chin into your collar when embarrassed, how your heartbeat sounds, I want to taste your pulse, open up a window in my mind and have you whisper into it, find me in the wreckage, all I want is to hold your hand, kiss you, take you out on a date—_

"What?" Mako looked up at him, eyes wide.

He hadn't realized that he had spoken, but he could still feel the words in his mouth, aftermath of a question he shouldn't have asked. Without thinking, he spoke again.

"Will you go out with me?" he repeated, and his lungs were full of stars.

Her face warmed in a smile fit to outshine the sun.

* * *

Herc couldn't say whether he preferred the Anniversary before Chuck was old enough to drink, or after.

At its core, the Anniversary remained primarily the same. Excuses. Flowers. Badly fitted suits and dead grass beneath their shoes as they stood on the hillside silently. There was a lot of silence, both before Chuck turned twenty-one and after, but the silence that went hand-in-hand with sobriety was hard and flinty, like steel and tasting of punches that begged to be thrown, but weren't. Chuck after a long afternoon and evening of drinking was silent like ice, deliberately swallowing his words with a mix of beer and harder liquor. All Herc could do was try to keep pace with him at first, usually giving up soon enough to keep a clear head. Chuck kept going. And going.

It had seemed disrespectful to Herc, at first. Drinking on the Anniversary, that was. But he cowered away from the other option; being sober. Painfully sober, with a son he had no idea how to handle, let alone talk to the way he should be, given the occasion.

The Anniversary was the same as ever, although it did happen to fall on a day when a school function was also scheduled. All it took was a few short words with Stacker to get them out of any obligations. Herc steeled his way through it, through the cold morning, the suits, the long car ride, and the drinking in the afternoon. Rain began into the evening, with both of them drinking at the same bar as ever. He welcomed it. The sound of the rain on the ceiling smothered everything in a blanket of continual noise, like fuzz on a television.

Herc could feel his silence inside him like a knife the entire evening.

Finally, around eleven, last call was given and Herc used that as an excuse to collect his son from the bar, making sure to grab his tie and jacket as well from where he had shucked them several hours before. Chuck went willingly, if a bit sluggishly, grumbling nonsense things through the stench of alcohol that covered him.

In the parking lot, the rain cold and clean on Herc's skin, Chuck wrenched himself free with a mumbled "Get off of me," and began to lurch towards his parked truck, splashing haphazardly in puddles as he went. With a sigh, Herc followed him.

"Come on," he said, grabbing at Chuck's arm again, "You're coming with me."

"'ike hell I am, old man," Chuck slurred, and attempted to wrench himself free. Herc's hand tightened.

"You're bloody _plastered_," he told his son, "get a hold of yourself. You're not driving, not on my watch."

Chuck's eyes bored holes into his skull. "So what?" his voice was low. Herc tightened his jaw and escorted his son to his own car, nearly punting him into the cab of the truck. Chuck grumbled but nonetheless sank into the seat while Herc circled around to the driver's side. Chuck's apartment complex was in the digs, a section of the town that seemed constantly under construction. Herc headed that way, blearily aware in the back of his mind that they would pass the school as they went.

The car was quiet except for the sound of rain and the windshield wipers. It slugged through Herc's veins and made a grab at his chest. His life hadn't always been this quiet. He thought of a fire. Of a closed door.

Then, Chuck spoke.

"I hate," he started, and coughed up a lungful of stale air, smelling like a distillery, "I hate."

Herc wished that he could drown in the sound of the rain, wished that he had stopped Chuck from drinking so much he actually became articulate. "I know," he sighed, heart clenching, "I know you hate me." He barked a self-depreciating laugh. "God, I'm the whole reason we're in this bloody mess." A fire. A closed door. Silence like ice.

"No," Chuck said, and straightened. Herc noticed he wasn't wearing his seatbelt. "I hate…" he made a vague gesture towards his chest. "My fault." His voice raised a few octaves. He leaned his forehead against the cool window, and Herc caught a reflection of his face in the glass, pointed away from him.

He had his mother's eyes.

Herc found himself shaking his head. "It's not your fault," he insisted, swallowing heavily. "Your mother…" he couldn't say her name.

Chuck could. "_Angela._"

The school was coming up on the side of the road. The land across the street was leveled, a dirt parking lot entering into the woods and hiking trails. Herc was trying to think around the wall in his mind, telling him that talking would only open up wounds he didn't know how to heal.

"Your mother," Herc started again, grabbing onto his courage, "she loved you more than anything. She told me…" a closed door. A fire. "She told me to take you outside." The house was on fire, and Angela was trapped behind a closed door. Chuck was screaming from his room, and Angela shouted through the door—"I wanted to go back, but it was… it was too late." Eleven years later all that remained of her was the yearly ritual of wearing suits, buying flowers, and visiting her grave. "If you want to blame anyone, blame me. You were—" You_ were everything to her. You are everything to me. I can't say it because I don't want to hurt you anymore than you already are—but that's my fault, too. _His hands tightened on the wheel and he watched the road, in silence, waiting for the returning slap from Chuck. He expected nothing less than what he deserved.

"_Dad_," Chuck said. His voice was quiet and heavy.

Herc was turning to look at his son, when something dark flashed across the street in his periphery. The streak paused, frozen, in the center of the murky lane. With a bitten shout, Herc threw the wheel sideways to avoid a collision.

The tires shrieked, slipped on the watered road, and the car tipped ever so gently over. It rolled before thudding to a stop on the side of the road, upside-down, and crushed.

The crash and the bellowing of alarms broke the rain-smothered silence; water and gasoline pooled beneath the wrecked truck, chilling Herc to the bone and flooding his nose with scents bitter and mechanical. He was aware of the unnatural stillness beside him in the mangled cab, a silence too deep to be anything else. Ice poured into his mind.

He struggled to say Chuck's name, but the air caught in his lungs, coiled there, burned. A fire in his chest. A closed door in his mouth.

He never made a sound.

* * *

**See you next time, you guys! :D**


	10. Teamwork and Relationships Seminar

**And welcome back, folks! This is it. Well, except for epilogue-esque chapter.**

**Many thanks to my poor injured beta-chan paradorx, who sprained her ankle last week :( send her your love and affection.**

* * *

The jolt of the gurney being raised brought Herc back to the waking world. Everything was dim and foggy, and he was unable to move from where they had strapped him down. He tasted a thick coating on his tongue that only could have been some kind of medication.

The medics took notice of his open eyes, looking up at the canopy of stars above him. They shone lights and talked over him to each other about injuries and suspected drunk driving. It was nothing that Herc wanted to hear.

"My son," he slurred, struggling to get control of his arms and legs, "where's my son?"

The medics' words were nothing but gibberish to him as he craned his neck up and looked around; it was a little past midnight, and the street was empty aside from the police and the ambulance.

There was another gurney, beside him, with a white sheet thrown over a long, lumpy shape. Herc's heart leapt and his eyes were burning. "Oh, God, please, _not my son_."

His hand was being held. He looked over to see who it was and his head dropped back down with a sharp exhalation.

"Jesus, old man," Chuck said, holding onto his hand and walking alongside the rolling gurney, "it was only a little fender-bender."

"You're alright," Herc muttered, and tried to squeeze his hand. He checked over his other side and saw a medic continue to stuff a sheet into a medical bag, propped on the top of the gurney so to better be reached. Herc looked back at his son, drinking in his very presence silently.

Chuck smiled, his face a bruised and scraped-up mess. "It's going to take more than a car crash to get rid of me. I'm fine."

"Actually, you have a severe concussion," one medic said bluntly, obviously having to repeat himself, "and you should be in the ambulance getting it checked out."

Chuck rolled his eyes.

"It's not the first time getting his head bashed in," Herc added fondly as they loaded him into the ambulance, Chuck climbing in alongside, "he'll make it."

Chuck's laughter—something he hadn't heard in a long, long time, lulled him back to sleep as the ambulance pulled away, sirens blaring.

* * *

When Raleigh got to work in the morning, his head was still trying to wrap itself around the fact that Herc and Chuck had been in a car accident the night before—and had come away unscathed, if a little pissed. Herc had a broken collarbone and kept saying to the police how he saw a dark shape from the school, which had Raleigh on edge. Mountain lions and the odd coyote were known to wander around, but not in this kind of weather.

"Psst."

Raleigh, at his inbox, paused and looked around the empty room in confusion. Then he shrugged and collated his papers together, humming a bit.

"_Psst_."

He jumped and looked around, again making sure that the room was empty. It was. Deciding that it was too early to deal with whatever the hell was going on, he shoved his papers in his bag and beat a hasty retreat for the exit.

"_Psst Raleigh!_"

Raleigh banged into the wall as he jumped away from the door of the supply closet, which was hissing his name. The supply closet was apparently very interested in getting his attention.

"Tendo?" Raleigh asked, squinting, having recognized the voice. "What are you…?"

"Get in the supply closet," Tendo hissed through the door.

"What? No." Raleigh was about to start walking away when the door opened and Tendo's hand closed around a fistful of knitted sweater.

"Get in the supply closet, Shinji!" Tendo punctuated his pulling and heaving, finally manhandling the larger man into the closet. He yanked a string below a light bulb to illuminate the small space, stale smelling and piled with reams of copy paper and ink cartridges. Raleigh's eyes adjusted to the sudden light and he groaned loudly.

"I think I hate you," he reflected, to both Tendo and Yancy, who was sitting on a low shelf at the back of the closet, face buried in his phone. He put away his phone and stood, assuming a soldier's posture.

"We need to talk," he said darkly.

"You need to be psychiatrically evaluated," Raleigh replied. "Why are you two hiding in the supply closet?"

"What are you wearing on your date tonight?" Tendo asked without preamble.

Raleigh shook his head and held up his hands. "Nope. I'm not doing this with you guys." He let himself out of the closet and Tendo and Yancy trailed after him.

"We're only thinking of helping you out," Yancy explained. "It _has _been a little while since your last successful date."

Raleigh silently rolled his eyes and blocked out their chattering. His date with Mako was scheduled for that night, and he frankly wasn't up for any romcom-situation shenanigans that his brother and Tendo would have stored up their sleeves.

"Bye, guys," he waved over his shoulder to them as he exited the faculty offices, leaving them standing at the door of their island of influence with steeled jaws and hunting looks. Raleigh hefted his bag farther up on his shoulder and swerved to avoid a group of girls sweeping through the hallway. He ended up slipping behind the math and sciences building. He had only just registered how he had gone from the frying pan into the fire when Sasha bore down on him in her lab coat.

She aimed a finger at his face and he suppressed a sigh.

"You will treat her like a lady," she instructed sternly. "Or I will _ruin _you."

"Yes, ma'am," Raleigh bowed out and actually did groan when confronted for the third and fourth times, respectfully. His classroom was so close he could almost taste it, but he was halted again by the doctors Geiszler and Gottlieb.

"Where are you two going for your date?" Newt demanded, Hermann glowering at Raleigh at his elbow.

"_I _am going to my classroom," Raleigh said, "and _you _are getting out of my way." He shouldered them aside.

"Pick someplace classy!" Newt called out, and Hermann called out as well something about ensuring maximum success by paying in full, and Newt told him off for sexism, and their momentary coalition broke down into their normal married-couple squabbling. Raleigh could feel his blood pressure rising.

Once in his class, he wasted no time.

"If anyone mentions me and Ms. Mori or a date then I will be sending you straight to Mr. Pentecost's office." A few kids paled, and one began to hyperventilate in the back. Raleigh wondered, not for the first time, how it was Stacker commanded so much fear, and how he could possibly cultivate some general fear of his own to make his life easier.

He spotted Mako in the doorway of her room. She waved shyly at him. He waved back, and then froze. He turned to his students. They were all looking at him.

"Well," he coughed, "Um. Grammar. Let's do some grammar."

* * *

Mako and Raleigh both agreed to stay at school to grade papers—they sat next to each other at the table in the teacher's lounge, occasionally bumping elbows in the cramped space, but neither one moved, or even dared to speak, too cautious of the newborn agreement between them, the understanding that there was something more there than friendship. Eventually Mako excused herself to go see Sasha about something, and Raleigh checked his watch and then his hair in the faculty bathroom, checking his breath as well. The restaurant he chose wasn't all too "classy" as Newt had recommended, but judging by the hours he spent online doing research it was a good first date place, with barely any students flocking to it. How embarrassing _that _would be.

He texted her, and headed out to stand by his car in the fading light and cold late autumn air, trying to whistle past the lump in his throat and the tight fist in his chest. He thought he spotted Yancy peering at him from his office window, but as he was looking closer a shade fell in place, hiding him. Raleigh rolled his eyes despite knowing no one would see it.

When Mako arrived at the gate, Raleigh nearly dropped his keys, and felt the air in his lungs solidify.

She wasn't wearing red, like she had been the day before at the dance, but a subdued navy that made her lips red and her eyes dark and shining—her blue hair streaks were like beacons. Over it she had put on a brown sweater with falling autumn leaves, and Raleigh was close to declaring her impossible, it was so wonderful.

She smiled gamely at his staring, and he thought he should say something. He kept ogling.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" she asked, playfully.

Raleigh finally found his voice. "You look good," he blurted out. She chuckled and circled around to the passenger door, which he unlocked for her, wincing at how he missed his chance to open the door for her. He could feel Yancy's judgmental eyes on him from the window.

He had a better chance of opening the door for her once they reached the restaurant, jumping out of the car before it had even fully stopped to get to her door in time. She looked at him in amusement and he felt his face getting hot as he led the way into to give his name for his reservation.

The waiter tried to pull Mako's seat out for her. Raleigh glared and basically shoved him aside to do it himself. They were seated and given menus. Silence stretched.

"So, do you—"

"I think—"

They laughed as their words crashed nervously together. Raleigh looked frankly at Mako. "I haven't done this in a while," he said. He didn't say how he had never been in love with someone like her, but she felt it, drifting across the table.

"Me either," she said, and her relief was palpable. The awkwardness melted away and they laughed again.

"What were you going to say?" Raleigh prompted her.

"I was going to ask why you chose English," she said, and took a sip of water. Raleigh was struck by the movement of her throat as she swallowed and then reassembled his thoughts.

"I hated English when I was younger," he admitted with a smile, "it made me so angry. I didn't understand why everything worked the way it did—but I_ wanted _it to make sense. So I just dug and dug and dug and before I knew what was happening I had a teaching degree." She laughed at that. He wanted to make her laugh again.

"What about you?" he asked. He saw the furrow of her brow and he chuckled. "I don't mean Japanese. Because. Obviously. I was wondering why teaching, when you have an engineering degree? And why at the same school your father runs?"

She made an abashed face. "Stacker did not want me to be a teacher. He sent me to school, but once I got my degree, I just—it wasn't _me._ So I went back, put myself through my teaching degree, and, well. Here I am. He was against it at first, me working at Pacific Rim High, but eventually he came around, and invited me personally onto the staff."

Raleigh made a note to thank Stacker should he ever have a conversation one-on-one with him. Mako continued to relate her quest to hold herself up, and he could feel himself sinking deeper. She was a fire contained, just ready, waiting, to be set loose. It reminded him of running with her, of how she pulled ahead. He could follow her forever.

They gave their orders; he was going to get pasta and then thought about garlic breath, getting a steak instead. She got salmon and shrimp. They ate, still talking, about work, each other. This wasn't a game of Pictionary on a scrap of paper; it was just them, speaking and revealing, pushing and prodding, laughing and listening. Raleigh could listen to her forever. Shades he never saw came out, and he kept falling, over and over again, as the full three-dimensional Mako was revealed. _Oh. Oh. Oh._

He could only hope she felt the same way. But, if he was perceiving it right—and he hadn't been wrong yet—she was looking at him in a way that made his mind soar.

Eventually, Mako excused herself to go to the bathroom. Raleigh wasted no time in getting out his phone.

"What's up, kid?"

"Yancy, I am freaking out."

"Breathe, baby brother," Yancy instructed. "How's the date going?"

"Good." Raleigh swallowed. "Really good."

"Well. Isn't that, I don't know, good? Mission accomplished. Mozel tov, high fives all around."

"I'm still freaking out." Everything was swimming together, blending and blurring. He was in love. _Oh. _She loved him back. It was too much and too little—he wanted to kiss her until he was senseless, wake up next to her on late Saturday mornings, cook her breakfast, walk hand in hand with her in the hallway. When he was with her, every sense he had was heightened, every breath he had was full of stars. It was new and utterly terrifying.

"What am I supposed to do, Yancy?" Raleigh asked. "This is just a date, but I want… I'm not sure… what if she… oh my God I don't think I can breathe."

"Raleigh," Yancy cut him off, voice kind, "you tell me right now what Mako means to you."

He didn't need to think. "Everything," he said. "She's everything to me."

"THEN WHAT ARE YOU DOING TALKING TO HIM FOR?!" Chuck's voice blasted through the phone. "JESUS CHRIST, RAY, STOP WASTING TIME."

"Yancy," Raleigh said calmly, after a moment's silence, "please tell me I'm not on speakerphone."

"You're not on speakerphone," Yancy dutifully replied. Tendo snickered in the background.

With that, Raleigh ended the call.

* * *

"Well," Yancy said in an upbeat voice, "that went well." Chuck muttered something into his bowl of chips, which was really meant to be a communal bowl, but had been claimed for himself barely into the first half hour of the party. He was still banged up from the crash but his concussion was fine, and Herc had been released and taken out by Stacker for a much-needed break. Chuck had ended up at Yancy's doorstep demanding food and entertainment. And thus the Date Seminar was born.

"How's Mako doing?" Yancy called out, standing from the couch. Sasha emerged from the kitchen, her husband following behind her with a hot tray of spinach puffs on a plate. She tapped something on her phone and summoned up her text conversation with Mako.

"She's in the bathroom having trouble breathing," she reported brusquely, "I told her to grow a pair."

Yancy nodded. "Well done."

Tendo's watch electronically beeped and he stood as well, clapping his hands for attention. "We have entered the second hour of Operation: Date Night," he announced to the room, raising his voice to be heard over the sound of Newt and Hermann bickering, "please update or support your current bets." He walked around with a collection bowl full of money and one rather vaguely valued watch and a grid sheet of paper, marking off what went where and the odds of what.

Chuck dumped in twenty more bucks on a kiss within the next hour, and Yancy deposited forty on one within half an hour. Sasha stuck with her bet of a kiss at the end of the date, and Aleksis dropped a suspiciously large roll of cash for a kiss in fifteen minutes. Tendo struggled to control his curious eyebrow raise and moved on.

Newt and Hermann had taken control of one corner of Yancy's living room, with large swatches of butcher paper liberated from the drama department taped over the walls so Hermann could scribble away algorithms that would take too long to enter into a calculator. He was scribbling with one hand while using the other to gesture at Newt while he spoke.

"I'm telling you, there are proven methods of socio-culture study that time and predict—"

"It's not mental or psychological, it's _physical_. Pheromones are—"

"For _animals, _Newton."

"Guys." Tendo shook his collection bowl. "Give it up."

They searched pockets and laid more money on their own individual theories, glaring at each other as Tendo tallied them down. Newt favored a more animalistic approach to his reasoning, also heavily swayed by his knowledge of romantic comedy movies. Hermann, however, had a time frame and equation he kept updating throughout the night.

Tendo rejoined Yancy at the middle of the room. Between the two of them, they fiddled with the television and finally got picture—a grainy feed from a web camera Tendo had pointed out of a window in the front offices. In the darkness, illuminated barely by street lamps, they could see Mako's parked car.

They watched, and waited.

* * *

Eventually dinner was over, with a shared dessert. Mako glared at him when he tried to take the whole bill and he laughed, letting her cover half.

The ride home was warm and easy. "She did not!" Raleigh laughed.

Mako was wheezing. "She walked right up to me and said," she put on a thick Russian accent, "'Mako, you should be standing next to him.'"

"Yancy told me the exact same thing." Raleigh couldn't believe it. Too soon they were back in the parking lot and Raleigh got out of the car, watching as Mako lined up by her car. The air was cold, but he was warm, and she looked at him in a way that made him want to stand like a statue, forever.

Raleigh said "I had a good time," and immediately regretted it. It was such a horrible way to describe one of the best nights of his life.

Mako gave him a look that showed how she knew how he was feeling. "I had a great time, too," she said. They stood some distance apart in the parking lot of the school, her car behind her, and him leaning against the driver's side door of his own in an attempt to look more casual than he felt.

"Yeah," he said. Then, he stood up, grabbing a hold of his courage. "Mako, I—" he stopped. The way she was looking at him. He let out his gathered breath slowly. "I never really thought about the future," he started, and then laughed, scuffing his feet on the asphalt. Something went unsaid that made color rise in Mako's face. "I never did have very good timing."

A small smile flickered on her lips. "I don't think so," she said, and everything about him was alive as she stepped up, covering the distance between them until they were nearly chest to chest, only a breath of air separating them, a small half-inch that sang with energy, with the reaction of them happening in midair. She tilted her face up and he looked down at her, so close. He leaned down.

Mako's breath was ghosting across his lips and he could feel her getting closer, and closer…

She paused, and backed up so fast that Raleigh's heart broke. "Did you hear that?" she asked, and he gave her a quizzical look in response, arms feeling empty and skin cold. Then, he heard it.

"What the…?" he turned around, looking at the lit up front offices. Drifting softly down from it was the sound that Tendo's soundboard tended to make when accidentally touched.

He looked at Mako, and she nodded her agreement. Together, they walked in the shadows towards a window. It was not unusual for security lights to be left on at the school to try and dissuade thieves, but never in the front offices. They got down low and looked up over the window ledge, leaning on each other for balance as they took in the scene.

Tendo's soundboard was in his bullpen, and someone—Raleigh didn't recognize them—in black clothing, was trying to shut it up, pounding at keys and buttons uselessly. He could hear him cursing under his breath. A second figure—a woman, who looked pregnant—appeared at the entrance to Stacker's office.

"It's not here—will you shut that thing up?"

The man gave up and addressed her. "Check the VP's office. We need those codes. Should be in a memo."

She went to Herc's office and let herself in, rummaging around. "Hey!" she called out, "come look at this. He's got handcuffs in his desk!"

"What?" he moved to go stand by her.

Mako and Raleigh turned to look at each other silently.

Everything fell into place between them. Chuck, screaming on the sidelines of the football game as they were beat time and time again—_Chuck, with his playbook in an unlocked drawer_. Tendo missing his keys and phone on the day of Yancy's accident—_Tendo's universal key set_. The missing tests, the losing sports team, the broken soundboard. The dark human-like shape that had nearly killed Herc and Chuck, running across the street from the school.

Without a sound, Mako and Raleigh moved in towards the offices. The back entrance had been opened and propped there with the lock-stopper engaged. The lock-stopper was a plastic wedge installed on all lockable doors that would block it from engaging with the jamb fully and locking. Raleigh's heart was in his throat and he looked at Mako, with her jaw set and fire in her eyes.

She pulled the door out and slipped inside, leaving him opened-mouthed and holding the door for her. She ducked down and crawled along the floor in Tendo's bullpen, her hand shooting up to grab at the wallet and keys the man in black had left next to the soundboard. She then kept her head low and reached the door. He was ready to close it after her, but she stopped, and took the careful time to find the right key and lock the office door.

His heart was beating out a tattoo on his ribs as she finished the job quickly, and joined him outside. He made sure to slide the lock-stopper so that the door clicked shut as he released it. The two intruders were now locked inside.

Mako seemed completely in control. "What do we do?" Raleigh asked, trailing after her, back towards their cars.

"Call the police," Mako ordered, and he immediately got his phone out, pulling up the necessary keypad, and spotted Mako doing the same.

"Who are you calling?" he asked.

She didn't look up. "Someone much worse than the police," she said cryptically, and he swallowed, turning to give her a bit of privacy as he pressed the numbers.

"Raleigh," she said. He turned around.

She put her hand on the back of his neck and brought him down to her level. Their mouths crashed together, lips and teeth and tongues, all the unspoken things, making Raleigh's heart stop and start up again. They parted, breathless, foreheads still touching. They didn't want to separate any farther, create any distance. They leaned together in the semi-darkness, phones still out and thieves locked away, breathing in and out. In and out, inhaling each other.

It was minutes before they could bear to move again.

* * *

Stacker's phone buzzed inside his suit pocket, and he retrieved it while Herc stared at his plate and wondered how he was expected to cut a steak with only one functional arm. As Stacker read the screen of his phone he gave a small smile.

"What's that, then?" Herc asked, choosing to eat his baked potato first.

"It seems that Mako and Mr. Becket's date went well," he replied.

"How'd you know that?"

Stacker held up his phone. "I follow Yancy on twitter."

Herc grinned and shook his head, ignoring his food in favor of seguing into how he would need to get himself a twitter account if he was ever to keep on top of what was going on. He was about to speak when Stacker's phone rang in tandem with his.

They answered at the same time with matched confused looks.

"Mako?" Stacker asked.

"What? _A break-in?_" Herc nearly dropped his phone.

Then, within a minute, they stood up and rushed out of the restaurant, leaving a wide bill and excuses behind them.

* * *

**Ta-da! I, for once, and not _totally _evil.**


	11. Economics and Real Estate Final Exam

**And here we are, the final chapter *single tear***

**Many thanks to my beta-chan paradorx, long may she reign as queen of grammar.**

* * *

"This is ridiculous," Yancy said bluntly. Raleigh was too busy being blissed out to even respond, running around wrapped in a towel and damp from his rushed shower. Yancy took his silence as an invitation to continue, standing in the middle of Raleigh's living room with a mug full of coffee with him. "I mean, just take an overnight bag for Christ's sake. You're going to be late to the fair."

Raleigh flashed Yancy a smile, his toothbrush hanging out of the corner of his mouth. "Let me tell you, Yance, it's much more exciting without an overnight bag."

"I didn't need to know that," Yancy remarked quietly into the lip of his cup, taking a fortifying slurp of bitter liquid.

"Well maybe if you didn't pitch such a fit about Mako staying over here, then you wouldn't need to know." Raleigh disappeared into his room to get dressed leaving the door open to continue his conversation.

"Hey, cut me some slack! Hearing about it second hand is much better than hearing about it through your bedroom wall." He shuddered at the memory. "You are _loud_, bro."

Raleigh smiled brightly as he pulled a sweater over his head. "It's a joint effort."

"Oh my god, you manage to say that like there are hearts coming out of your eyes. Are there hearts coming out of your eyes? _Jesus_." Yancy stomped around towards the garage. "I'm leaving! See you at the fair."

"See you," Raleigh huffed as the door slammed. He rolled his eyes and continued getting ready.

It was May. The rains of April had let up only a few weeks earlier, and with them came the ceremony Raleigh thought he'd never manage to see. The fiftieth anniversary Payload Award was given to Pacific Rim High School by default—seeing as Breach Academy was revealed as grossly corrupt, stealing football plays and test scores in an attempt to secure the money for themselves. Their Physics and Anatomy teachers had been caught red-handed attempting to intercept a memo between Stacker and Herc, about the codes for the school's online gradebook, with which they would have been able to fail every student enrolled. Mrs. Otachi confessed at once—while Mr. Leatherback growled occasionally and made lewd comments about Herc Hansen and handcuffs until a lawyer was present, when he opened up about the plan for the Payload Award's extra cash to be divided as bonuses among the staff. The school was investigated, corroborated the story, and had been forcefully and shamefully removed from the running for the Payload Award.

The entire staff of Pacific Rim High had been there to watch and applaud as Stacker accepted the award from the school board, his face serious but eyes alight with pride. No one from Breach Academy was allowed to be in attendance. The after party in the town hall ballroom had been good so far as Raleigh could see—but Mako had pulled him into a closet after only a half an honor to make out, and that was all he ended up seeing of the after party. He heard later from Yancy that Tendo drank Chuck under the table and Aleksis and Sasha danced a tango so fiery they had to be removed from the dance floor before it became something obscene. But, considering the night he had, he wasn't sorry to have missed it.

Raleigh spent most nights at Mako's condo, so many that he _was, _despite his teasing Yancy, actually thinking about packing some kind of bag or box to keep there, so he wouldn't have to drive back home before heading to school to freshen up.

Looking less like he had spent the night doing something suggestive, Raleigh finally got into the car and sped towards the school, arriving amid traffic to a main office full of gossiping teachers, all leaning amicably against the bar surrounding Tendo's bullpen. Raleigh quickly discovered that Mako was not there yet and visibly deflated. Yancy scoffed and hit Tendo with his elbow, pointing it out. Tendo rolled his eyes and followed the Wei Tang brothers out to the quad, new soundboard held carefully in his arms to set up the sound system for the celebratory fair.

The entire day's worth of classes had been cut, and all the students were going to be the recipients of a fair, set up down the central outdoor hallway, stalls of games and food and entertainment, free of charge, courtesy of the Payload Award, which was also funding a new sports announcement shed, new computers for the computer lab and library, and completely renovating the drama center, right down to wood floors to replace the cheap 70s linoleum currently in place on the stage. New sports team uniforms, smaller entry fees for the arts, as well as a larger book budget was all a result of one date and one brave girl who locked the door.

One date had become many dates, over the few months between the arrests and the award ceremony. Many, many dates. In fact, the 6th month anniversary of when they decided to go steady was yawning ahead, and Raleigh was already in a flurry of trying to decide what to get.

Raleigh ended up leaning against the bullpen next to Yancy and listened to Newt and Hermann argue about exactly how much fun carnivals were. It was an endless argument, and Raleigh thought that they should have realized it by now, two geniuses, but they refused to in favor of arguing with their favorite combatant forever.

When Mako entered the room, Raleigh could feel it. His head whipped around and he nearly ran to her.

"Morning," she purred, giving him a quick kiss and holding his hand.

"Hey," he said, entire face lighting up.

Newt made a gagging noise and beat a retreat, Hermann on his heels.

"I have never felt so single in my entire life," Yancy reflected with a shudder. Chuck slid down the bar next to him.

"I'm with ya, mate," he said, wrinkling his nose as Mako and Raleigh kissed again. "It sets my stomach churning."

"Amen." They fistbumped and Yancy stared resolutely at Raleigh, who rolled his eyes.

"Everybody, stations!" Tendo poked his head inside the office and then disappeared again. Raleigh tried his hardest to ignore how Chuck and Yancy continued to chat as they left.

"It's ridiculous, he's been spending nearly every night at her house and he's still too wimpy to commit to bringing a bag with him."

"Amateur."

Mako squeezed his hand, bringing his attention back to her. "What are you in charge of?" she asked. By unanimous staff decision, she was exempt from having to work on the grounds that she was the one responsible for revealing the subterfuge in the first place.

They began to walk out of the offices. "I was going to do the strongman contest, with the hammer-bell contraption, but Aleksis pulled rank and stole it from me. Sasha's next door, so I think he just wanted to be near her." He spread the hand that was not currently in her possession. "I'm free."

Her smile lit him up from toes to the top of his head. "Good."

At the quad, Tendo was making full use of his new soundboard, replacing the busted one, and the Wei Tang brothers were demonstrating an awe-inspiring mix of breakdancing and acrobatics, putting their own cheerleading squad to shame, struggling to keep up with their coaches.

They watched for a while, hand in hand, and then began to walk down the main hallway, looking at games and entertainment. Raleigh tried to do the strongman contest, but came up laughingly short. Mako muttered something about fulcrums before nearly doubling his score. He tripped after her from the stall, stars in his eyes. Aleksis and Sasha, in the next booth selling cotton candy, passed some money over their waist-high partition.

As they neared the end of the hallway, the crowd got denser, and the sounds louder. Everyone seemed to be shouting out encouragements and asking for reinforcements for whatever was ahead. Raleigh racked his mind and remembered what was set up there.

"Who's in the dunk tank?" Raleigh asked loudly, struggling to be heard.

Mako chuckled. By standing on her tiptoes, she could speak right into his hear, sending pleasant shivers down his spine. "As if you need to ask." She pointed, and Raleigh couldn't help but grin in amusement. They stopped to watch the show, getting close to the action.

The dunk tank had a long line of angry looking kids lining up for a chance to try and dunk none other than Chuck Hansen, perched on the small chair in nothing but a white shirt and skinny jeans, looking pleased beyond measure, shouting out insults and urging them all to give it a go.

He was particularly hard on his own football players. "Step up, boys, show me what you've been hiding all season!"

"You call that a throw? No wonder you warmed the bench!"

"Ha, if only the target was shaped like the visitor's defensive line, you might hit something!"

"Come on, boys, you throw like toddlers!" Chuck mimed a noodle-armed throw with a childish coo and dissolved into harsh laughter, "My grams could throw harder; and she's _dead_!"

With a red face, the big football player took off his shoe and threw that, aiming for Chuck rather than the target. Chuck laughed and dodged. "Are you kidding me, Jones? If that toss wasn't so horrible, I'd make you run laps!"

"You're an asshole!" someone in the middle of the gathered crowd shouted.

"I've never claimed otherwise!" Chuck replied. "Now, come on up, you pansies, show me what you've got!" He flexed his arms challengingly.

The rabble was pulling the biggest kids possible and pushing them forward, egging them on, to Chuck's continued amusement and derision. He shouted abuse and was abused in return, but he didn't seem to care, too busy enjoying his ability to be abrasive and not punished.

Then, all fell under a hush.

Wearing his weekend clothes, not his normal suit, Herc approached the stall with Max happily slobbering away by his side on a leash. His arm was fresh out of its sling, and he smiled gamely at his son, now with a look of shadowed suspicion on his face.

Herc picked up a ball and rolled it around his palm.

"I've been meaning to test my arm again," Herc said loudly, meeting with cheers from the surrounding kids. Chuck's eyes grew wide as he witnessed his father warming up his throwing arm, Max barking happily along.

"Old man—" Chuck said warily, holding up one hand, and with the other, holding onto his small seat.

"Don't call me that," Herc responded, winked, pulled his arm back, and threw. With a loud bell and a bitten shout, Chuck dropped into the drink. The kids were ecstatic.

Sputtering and cursing, Chuck pulled himself out of the water, drenched completely. His hair was plastered to his forehead and his white shirt clung to him in lewd ways, made almost completely transparent. He hovered on the edge of the bin for an extended moment, arms straining, and then swing one leg over the side, tight material made tighter from the water.

"Oh my god," one girl said faintly, and dozens of camera phones were out. As soon as his feet hit the ground, Chuck was swarmed, eyes wide in shock and a little bit of fear—girls offering him jackets and help, plucking at the material of his shirt, urging him that taking it off would keep him warmer. Slowly they herded him and began to move him from the central hallway towards the girl's locker room.

Raleigh's eyes met Chuck's over the girls' heads as they ushered him away, and Raleigh grimly—only barely keeping a smile in place—saluted him. Tendo, on the platform in the quad, also apparently saw the destruction taking place, as a surprisingly well-mixed dubstep cover of Taps began to play, heralding Chuck's departure. Herc looked out, somewhat repentant but overall feeling pretty good.

Raleigh felt a crushing grip on his shoulder.

Yancy, having momentarily abandoned his dart game, loomed behind him. "If you don't go pay attention to your girlfriend I am going to—"

"I can handle this, Yancy," Raleigh sighed.

"Yeah, Yancy," Mako snipped, "he can handle this." Yancy's face was priceless and he held up his hands in defeat.

"Alright, you win. I wash my hands of you!" He walked back to his station, ruefully shaking his head.

With a laugh, Mako tugged on Raleigh's hand, bringing them to a walk again. It was a good, easy day, Mako stepping in to reply to some of his student's catcalling at seeing them together, making him feel proud and deliriously content. He won her a big stuffed bear and she clung to it, burying her face in the thick fur. He could barely handle it. They strolled together through the fair until the bell alerted that the day was over. Slowly, they followed the stream of students out, ending in the faculty parking lot, alone. Mako put the bear in her car before turning to face him, rocking on her heels in her thoughtful way, arms tucked behind her back.

"I know that it's a bit early," she said carefully, "but I think I have your anniversary gift."

His heart gave out a loud, nervous beat. "Really, Mako, that's—I haven't—"

She laughed, "If this goes right you won't need to get me anything."

He raised an eyebrow, squinting. "What…?" he felt that heavy silence between them, full of words unspoken. She smiled, sensing what he was doing.

His face went slack. "You want me to move in with you." A smile took over him and he repeated himself, excited, unbelievably excited, "You want me to move in with you! Right?"

He smiled was so big he thought his heart would burst. It swelled, grew full of everything _Mako_, and he picked her up, swinging her around in absolute happiness, and it remained intact.

* * *

**Ta-da, and thank you for reading! Leave me a review, please?**


	12. EX: Bromantic Poets of the 21st Century

**Heh, well, this is awkward... adding to a story already finished...**

**But, hey! I have more snapshots from the Those!verse in mind, so I might occasionally add one on. Like now, for instance.**

**Many thanks to my beta-chan paradorx, who beta'd this chapter while in the wings of the school play, waiting for her cue. True dedication.**

* * *

They weren't entirely sure, in the end, how it started. If they had compared notes, Tendo's name would have popped up a discomfortingly large amount of times, along with a few side-notes about rent, square-footage, and compatibility from Dr. Gottlieb. They were unaware how it started, but the ending was very clear, with Chuck moving out of his apartment in the digs—a rundown old low-price housing unit under constant construction that Chuck fondly called "the shithouse"—and moving, with Max in tow, into the recently vacated half of Yancy's duplex.

It was strange, at first. Yancy had to get used to having someone definitely not Raleigh there, and Chuck had to get used to getting full nights of sleep and not waking up to the smell of chlorine and piss. Slowly, almost not believing how much space he had, he began to spread out over his new home, unpacking small knick-knacks and one day showing up with a secondhand couch in the bed of his truck. It took them an hour of banged elbows and loud cursing to maneuver it into his living room.

It was an uneasy alliance in the beginning, cautious and frosty, since neither party had any real idea of how to act around a roommate that wasn't a family member. Eventually, Yancy, in his special manner, managed to drop-kick any boundaries straight to the moon.

"Hey, Chuck!" Yancy called out from his desk in the nurse's office.

Chuck, who had been conversing discretely with Tendo about the possibility of a restraining order for his after-lunch class, turned around warily, heading over to stand in Yancy's doorway.

"What?" he asked brusquely.

Yancy had his lunch spread out over his desk and motioned towards it. "I screwed up and made two sandwiches. One for Raleigh, but I forgot he was going out with Mako for lunch."

Chuck didn't catch on. "So?"

"So?" Yancy drawled out, "I notice that you never eat lunch. That's a health choice, and I _am _a nurse."

"So?" Chuck echoed, edging a bit closer into the office. "I don't follow."

"You." Yancy pointed at him. "Sandwich." He pointed to the spread of food on his desk, a couple of sandwiches and bags of chips and carrots. "Eat." He mimed doing so.

Chuck's ears colored faintly. "I'm fine," he insisted, and then flinched as Yancy picked up his offered sandwich and threw it at him. He floundered and finally caught it. He still seemed unsure, so Yancy drove the point home by gesturing grandly at the chair in front of his desk. Chuck sat down.

"… got anything to drink?" he ventured. Yancy swung his chair around and rummaged through his small fridge, tossing Chuck a soda, which he caught with more ease than he had the sandwich.

They ate in a strange friendly silence with no real need for small talk. When the five minute end of lunch bell rang, Chuck stood up, balling up his sandwich rapper and aiming for the trashcan. It hit the edge and bounced off. Yancy took aim with his own and scored. He punched the air.

"Maybe next time," he told Chuck, who narrowed his eyes at the obvious ploy.

But, he didn't fight it. "Next time," he promised, and headed off to his next class.

* * *

"Yancy. Mate, wake up, it's almost noon."

"Exactly," Yancy moaned, fully enjoying being half asleep, and then paused. "You're not Raleigh."

"Thank God," Chuck replied, leaning as casual as you please in Yancy's bedroom doorway. "But I am the man responsible for getting you to the car wash on time."

Yancy groaned louder and pressed his face deeper into the pillow. "I thought having you as a roommate would be _better _than having Raleigh. Or at least, less annoying."

"Are you waking up or not?"

"Get bent."

Chuck sighed and Yancy heard the sound of him walking away in his heavy work boots, too useful for a shop teacher to own, but that was Chuck. For a moment he actually deluded himself that Chuck was a man of the caliber that would give up when confronted with a sleeping man.

"Oi! Max! C'mere boy, hop up!" the skittering of dog paws on the wooden floors made Yancy freeze up in anticipation, and he was about to shout as a big bundle of fur and excitement collided with him, wriggling in an attempt to get beneath the sheets.

"No!" Yancy called out ineffectually, "No! Bad dog!"

"Good boy!" Chuck urged his dog on, "Rescue, rescue!" Max began burrowing down into Yancy's protective bundle of blankets until he found his face, licking it like his life depended on it. Yancy, in order to free himself, sat up and held the bulldog at arm's length. He gave the grinning Chuck his best glare.

"Traitor," he accused. Chuck looked beside himself and he, without invitation, entered Yancy's room and began to rummage through his drawers. "God, and I thought Raleigh was exaggerating how boundary-less you were."

"_He _was the one who went through my desk without permission. Is this silk?" He began tossing various articles of clothing onto Yancy's bed for Max to inspect before Yancy could swipe them up. "Get dressed."

"I think I might be learning to hate you."

Chuck's smile was wide and annoyingly white. "Join the club; but first, get dressed." Grumbling, Yancy deposited Max on the ground and chose what he would be wearing for the school's annual car wash. God knows they didn't need it, what with the Payload Award in the bag and everything, but it was such school tradition that it couldn't be put off.

"Why am I even _going_? I'm the _nurse_!" It was an old argument that Yancy had previously had with Raleigh.

"And you don't even do that," Chuck muttered and Yancy aimed a bundled up shirt at him. Chuck dodged and Max took the shirt in his mouth, scampering off with it. Yancy knew he would never see it again.

When Yancy was dressed in a shirt and shorts, he went out into the hallway where Chuck was waiting, giving him a bit of privacy while playing tug-of-war with Max, with Yancy's shirt as the rope. Yancy cleared his throat and Chuck glanced up. "Carpool?" he offered.

Yancy couldn't say no to that.

Normally he was the one giving rides to people, from years of driving his brother to school, and so even though Chuck's driving had Yancy hanging on for dear life and struggling to remember his prayers, it was nice. Max was in the truck bed, sticking his head into the cab through the open back window, slobbering all over the back of Yancy's head.

They screeched to a stop, and Yancy's legs were like jelly as he climbed down into the faculty parking lot, Chuck leaping down beside him, cursing his truck good-naturedly and kicking at the wheels fondly. Max wiggled his butt and Chuck handed his leash off to Yancy without explanation. Max took off, nearly ripping Yancy's shoulder from the socket.

"Catch up with ya!" Chuck called out as Yancy was dragged in a sprint across campus towards the student parking lot, where the car wash would be located. He aimed his middle finger over his head, and knew Chuck saw it by how his laugh carried.

"Hey, Max!" Mako greeted the bulldog, who immediately stopped to be admired, letting Yancy catch his breath in huge wheezing breaths.

Raleigh approached from where he was filling buckets with soapy water, grinning at his brother, hands braced on his knees.

"Don't. Say. A. Word," Yancy warned between pants.

"I was just going to ask how your new roommate was working out." He grinned and Mako finished her adoration of Max the bulldog, standing up and immediately getting pulled into a kiss by Raleigh. Yancy made a face.

"It's working out much better than a front seat to the Maleigh show," he griped. "No offense, Mako."

"None taken," she returned graciously, "it's nice having Raleigh around."

Yancy made gagging noises as Mako and Raleigh gazed longingly into each other's eyes. Max perked his little folded bulldog ears up and dragged his human weight around eagerly. Chuck was finally arriving, sunglasses in place. Under one arm he carried a metal and canvas contraption and in his other hand he carefully held a six-pack.

"Here's your demon," Yancy announced, handing off Max's leash. Chuck put the six-pack down and took it with a shit-eating grin.

"He just wants to make sure you get your exercise, old man." He kneeled down and nuzzled Max's head. "Isn't that right, boy? Isn't it?" Max looked up with big baby eyes that screamed "_I love you_."

"Too much emotion," Yancy shuddered, and headed off to see what exactly he was supposed to do at the car wash.

"Oi! Yance! Where're you going?" He turned around.

Chuck had set up his beach chair, Max curled up in his lap, and next to him a second chair was set up. Between them the six-pack gleamed cold droplets of condensation. He was looking at Yancy with a confused expression, one arm raised in a shrug.

"I knew you had a heart of gold," Yancy gushed, collapsing into the chair with a sigh of appreciation. He reached for a beer and Chuck blocked him.

"Don't get crazy," he warned, and handed one over. Twist-off caps. They clinked glass bottles together and sat back to watch students and teachers running around in the heat, getting splashed and grimy for five bucks a car.

* * *

"Hey, Raleigh," Tendo remarked, tucking some more cash into his payment box. "Yancy and Chuck seem to be spending a lot of time together since they moved in together…"

"Yeah?" Raleigh asked, eyebrows drawn together.

"Well… I was just wondering…" he looked pointedly towards where Yancy and Chuck were sitting pretty in beach chairs, taking turns tossing a ball for Max to run after.

It took Raleigh a moment. "Whoa! No, man, Yancy doesn't swing that way. Plus Chuck is like ten years younger than him."

Tendo shrugged. "I was just wondering."

"Now that I think about it, though," Raleigh reflected, "Chuck doesn't really seem to swing any way."

"Jealous?"

"What?" Raleigh stumbled. "Jealous of _what_?"

Tendo smiled baitingly and shrugged. "It just looks like Yancy adopted a new little brother."

"Thank God," Raleigh replied, "he needs something to invest his time in. And Chuck could use a good kick in the ass." Tendo chuckled.

* * *

"Ugh." Chuck groaned and downed the rest of his beer as his father approached. Yancy struggled to do the same.

"Yancy," Herc greeted him. Yancy garbled a mouthful of beer and nodded in greeting. Herc honed in on his son. "Chuck."

"Dad." His tone was icy.

"I'm going to assume that _you _brought the open containers of alcohol to a school function."

"Of course you immediately assume it was me."

"But it was you," Yancy pointed out quietly, and was ignored by father and son.

"For once, I'd just like you to treat your job seriously."

Chuck laughed. "Job? Babysitting adults as they wash cars for money we don't need?"

Herc opened his mouth like he was going to argue and cut his eyes towards Yancy. "Can we talk about this somewhere else?"

Chuck held out his arms and stood, Max trailing along after him as he walked off with his father. Yancy, feeling odd, stood up and watched silently at the argument taking place out of earshot, both father and son getting red in the face as they shouted and screamed. Max laid down behind Chuck and covered his face with his paws.

Chuck shoved past Herc, nearly knocking him over, and stormed off towards the faculty parking lot. Max followed him.

"Well," Yancy said bluntly to Tendo, who stood next to him, watching the show, "that sucks."

Tendo eyed him. "Family disputes get to you?"

"Chuck was my ride."

* * *

Yancy was helping Raleigh stack up unused boxes of soap in a storage shed on campus, chatting easily with him, when Herc approached them, looking abashed.

"Hey, Yancy," he pulled him off to one side.

"Yeah, Herc?"

"I don't suppose Chuck… has he called you?"

Yancy checked his phone. "Nope. But he does that. Not call, I mean."

Herc sighed. "Tell me about it. He's probably just blowing off steam. But… if he does call you, can you point him my way?"

Yancy eyed him. He had serious doubts about how well _that _interaction would go out, considering Herc and Chuck's track record for getting as close to fistfights as possible without actually laying hands on each other. Raleigh had been a lot like Chuck when he was younger—and unlike Herc, Yancy had been around to witness and deal with it. He knew that Chuck needed someone to let him steam and not force him into a corner he didn't want to be in.

"… sure," he said eventually, "I'll do that."

Herc looked at him for a moment like he wanted to call out Yancy on his false tone but with a visible crack appearing in his resolve, nodded. He then walked off, alone, and Yancy felt a bit sorry for him to be dealing with the constant teenager that was his son.

Yancy wanted to bum a ride home from Tendo, but he ended up being dragged around a mess of errands and was only able to escape by threatening to spoil Game of Thrones for him. It was dark out, and Yancy was surprised to see that Chuck's half of the duplex was unlit.

He was worried for half a minute, letting himself in through the side door, and saw that Chuck's truck was in the garage. Feeling a bit anxious, Yancy forced himself to overlook modern perceptions of personal space, he let himself into Chuck's half of the duplex without knocking.

"Chuck?" he called out awkwardly before walking fully inside, hitting light switches on the walls until he reached his living room.

Chuck was stretched out on one couch in the darkness, head on the armrest and Max passed out on his stomach. Yancy could just make out in the dimness that his face was a mess, bruised and scratched, the remnants of whatever mess he had gotten himself into after his fight with Herc. Yancy sat down on the other couch and waited quietly for Chuck to say something.

"Take a picture," he said in a rough tone. Yancy didn't know what he expected.

"You're really messed up," he observed gently.

Chuck didn't respond beyond shrugging. Yancy looked at him before pushing himself to his feet and disappearing into his side of the duplex. He came back, and fiddled with Chuck's television and DVD player. Then he stretched out on the other couch, giving Chuck privacy as he rubbed at his face and shifted how he was laying, gently nudging Max to adjust where he was sleeping, from curled up on his stomach to nuzzled against him as he lay on his side.

"What are we watching?" he asked as the movie began to play automatically.

Yancy couldn't keep a grin off of his mouth. "Mean Girls."

Chuck snorted. "Figures."

"Well, you can pick the next one."

Yancy liked to imagine that he could hear how Chuck smiled weakly. "Deal."

* * *

The movie ended and Yancy let the credits roll, thinking that Chuck had nodded off. He was wrong.

"So, you gonna call my dad or what?" Chuck sounded abashed and apprehensive.

"Do you want me to call him?"

"… No."

"Then it's your pick, kid."

Chuck grunted and picked Max off of him, setting him gently back down on the couch as he stood up. The bulldog snuffled and kicked his feet. "Don't call me kid," he said, even as he walked into his room and brought out a battered cardboard box.

"You just asked if I was going to call your dad like a kid," Yancy pointed out, stretching comfortably. "Plus you're like, ten years younger than me."

Chuck grunted and held up a few DVD cases that Yancy couldn't read in the darkness. He was about to ask him to pick and Yancy felt it necessary to say "No porn."

"Please," Chuck snorted. "I was gonna ask if you wanted to watch Star Trek: The Original Series or Next Generation."

"I'm not sure if a television series counts as a movie pick," Yancy said in a fake uneasy tone. Chuck glared.

"Original series it is."

Yancy laughed, and as Chuck was putting in the first disc in the DVD player, he sent a quick text to Herc.

_He's going to be fine._

_Thank you._

* * *

**The bromance of the century**

**Review, please?**


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